The image on the left shows the shape of a manganese catalyst particle. The image on the right shows the uniform elemental distribution of carbon throughout the particle. Image: Gang Wu, University at Buffalo.Manganese is best known for making stainless steel and aluminum soda cans. Now, researchers say the metal could also provide a boost to one of the most promising sources of renewable energy: hydrogen fuel cells. In a paper published in Nature Catalysis, a University at Buffalo-led research team reports on catalysts made from the widely available and inexpensive metal.
Eventually, this advance could help solve hydrogen fuel cells' most frustrating problem: namely, that they're not affordable because most catalysts are made with platinum, which is both rare and expensive.
"We haven't been able to advance a large-scale hydrogen economy because of this issue involving catalysts. But manganese is one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust and it's widely distributed across the planet. It could finally address this problem," says lead author Gang Wu, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in the University at Buffalo's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Additional members of the research team came from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Oregon State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of South Carolina, Giner Inc. and Harbin Institute of Technology in China.
For more than a decade, Wu has been searching for alternative catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells. He has reported advances in iron- and cobalt-based catalysts, but they tend to wear down over time, limiting their usefulness.
In previous work, Wu discovered that adding nitrogen to manganese causes internal changes to the metal that makes it more stable. In experiments reported in this study, he devised a relatively simple two-step method for adding carbon and a form of nitrogen called tetranitrogen to manganese.
The result was a catalyst that's comparable to platinum and other metal-based alternatives in its ability to split water – the reaction needed to produce hydrogen. More importantly, the stability of the catalyst makes it potentially suitable for use in hydrogen fuel cells. This could lead to wide-scale adoption of the technology in buses, cars and other modes of transport, as well as in backup generators and other sources of power.
Wu plans to continue the research, focusing on improving the catalyst's carbon microstructure and the method in which nitrogen is added. The goal, he says, is to further enhance the catalyst's performance in practical hydrogen fuel cells.
This story is adapted from material from the University at Buffalo, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier. Link to original source.