Best-Ever, Highly Active Catalysts Could Be Key to Improved Energy Storage in Fuel Cells and Advanced Batteries

MIT researchers have found a new family of materials that provides the best-ever performance in a reaction called oxygen evolution, a key requirement for energy storage and delivery systems such as advanced fuel cells and lithium-air batteries.

Splitting water into its constituent elements could be a significant boon for renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, whose output is highly variable. Using a catalytic system, electricity from a solar panel or wind turbine can be fed into a container of water, and the streams of oxygen and hydrogen produced by splitting the water molecules can be collected in separate tanks.  Then, when the power is needed, the two gases can be recombined, such as in a fuel cell, to produce water and electricity.

This method is well understood in principle, but to make it economically viable, researchers must find catalysts that are inexpensive, easily manufactured and efficient enough to carry out the conversion without losing too much of the original power.  The new finding could be a significant step in that direction, the MIT researchers say.

Best-Ever, Highly Active Catalysts Could Be Key to Improved Energy Storage in Fuel Cells and Advanced Batteries - MIT