Nature Communications: new cheap catalyst for efficient hydrogen production

Chemists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia have invented a new cheap catalyst that can effectively electrolyze water to produce clean hydrogen fuel The technology is based on the metal organic frameworks (MOF) material coated on the foam electrode The researchers found that the electrode has high conductivity and water splitting activity The research paper was published on nature communications under the title of ultrathin metal organic framework array for efficient electronic water splitting MOF array synthesis process (source: nature Communications) Hydrogen is a good carrier of renewable energy, not only because of its rich sources and zero emissions after combustion, but also because hydrogen is easier to store compared with other energy sources such as solar energy and wind energy, but also because the most effective catalyst developed so far is composed of precious metals such as Pt, Ru, IR Recently, the MOF catalyst developed by UNSW researchers is composed of abundant non precious metals such as Ni, Fe and Cu MOF belongs to a large family of general porous materials, which have a wide range of other potential applications But until now, MOF has been considered as a bad conductor, which is not very useful for electrochemical reaction Generally speaking, they are composed of a large number of powders, and their catalytic sites are deeply embedded in the pores which are hard to reach by water, so there is no way to talk about the catalytic effect of water electrolysis However, by creating MOF arrays of nanometer thickness, the team was able to expose micropores and increase the contact surface area between electricity and water This unique MOF structure solves the big problems of conductivity and across activation sites, which is a pioneering research result UNSW research shows that MOF has high conductivity and can challenge the common concept of inert electrocatalyst materials In the future, in addition to being a highly conductive electrolytic catalyst, MOF has a wide range of potential applications, including fuel storage, drug delivery and carbon capture "Two different catalysts are usually needed to decompose water, but our catalysts can drive two reactions to decompose water into oxygen and hydrogen at the same time," said associate professor Chuan Zhao, who led the study This catalyst is easy to manufacture, so we can produce all kinds of MOF ultra-thin nano sheet arrays Our catalysts are also the most efficient compared with other water electrolysis catalysts reported so far " Thesis link: https://