The spirals of metal left over from machining could become a substrate for the highly efficient catalysis of hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions, new research finds. By scaling the technology up, industry could both find a use for metal scraps that are rarely recycled and produce hydrogen at lower cost by sparing the amount of platinum catalyst necessary for water-splitting reactions.
“We kill two birds,” says Andrei Khlobystov, a professor of nanomaterials at the Univ. of Nottingham. “We save platinum, and we’re utilizing a material that nobody wants.”
Khlobystov and his team conducted the research as part of a larger project called Metal Atoms on Surfaces and Interfaces for Sustainable Future (MASI), funded by the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The overall goal, he says, is to address the sustainable use of metals, particularly in relation to net-zero technologies. “All of these processes require metal in the form of catalysts, and sometimes these catalysts are extremely expensive,” Khlobystov says. This makes commercial use difficult and stymies the move toward sustainability...
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