Researchers from the Northwestern University discovered a novel method of creating metal nanoparticles-based catalysts that could produce better fuel cells. The method can also recycle used catalysts into active catalysts.
These metal-based catalysts are shaped into gems. Twenty-four different faces comprise each particle that allow these gems to increase their catalytic activity compared to commercial catalysts.
Heat, stabilizing trace elements, and basic metal precursors are used in the method to convert these metals into catalytic structures. These catalysts are utilized in clean energy in commercial products that include fuel cells.
This generic method works with five monometallic nanoparticles and a host of bimetallic nanoparticles that include the metals platinum, cobalt, and nickel.
"Many of these precious metals are responsible for catalyzing some of the most important chemical transformations used in the chemical, oil and fuel cell industries," said Chad A. Mirkin, the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, who led the research.
"We not only can prepare commercially desirable catalysts, but we can recycle used fuel cell catalysts into the most active forms. Catalysts slowly degrade over time and change, so the fact that we can reclaim and reactivate these catalysts made of expensive materials is extremely valuable," Mirkin said.
The study was published in the journal Science.
"The new catalysts are called high-index facet nanoparticle catalysts-an optimal form for accelerating chemical reactions. Mirkin's team found their platinum catalysts were 20 times faster than the commercial low-index form for the formic acid electrooxidation reaction (based upon platinum content)," according to Phys.
"Platinum in the high-index facet form is different and better than it is in other nanoparticle forms," said Chris Wolverton, a co-author of the study and the Jerome B. Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering.
"It's all about chemistry," added Mirkin, who also is director of Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology.
