According to Energy Daily, the scientists suggest that, by combining iron with nitrogen and carbon, we can create a catalyst that that is durable, efficient and relatively cheap to produce.
Gang Wu, PhD, professor of chemical and biological engineering and lead author of the study, said that "this has been years in the making. We believe this is a significant breakthrough that will eventually help unleash the tremendous potential of hydrogen fuel cells."
Hydrogen fuel cells can be used in multiple applications and they are able to produce electricity or heat with as low as zero emissions, similar to batteries, but they work with hydrogen instead of stored electric energy.
The reason why they were not as widespread as batteries until now is because the catalysts were expensive to manufacture, since they were made using six precious metals that are part of the platinum-group.
These types of metals are durable and efficient, but also very expensive due to the fact that they are very rare, which is why scientists have been looking at alternatives.
One of those is the iron-based catalyst, which is appealing since it is available in large quantities and also inexpensive.
Still, it does not perform as well as platinum, mostly because it can't withstand the corrosion that happens inside a fuel cell.
To try and make it more resistant, researchers have added four nitrogen atoms to iron, then they embedded the material in a few layers of graphene.
The team says that the new catalyst exceeded their expectations, claiming that it "is believed to be the most efficient iron-based catalyst produced to date.”
Wu says that he and his colleagues will now try to improve the technology to make it suitable for commercial applications, as this could make hydrogen fuel cells more attractive for various industries.
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