In 2019, legislation was passed committing the UK to achieving 100% net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. There are many ways to achieve this goal but hydrogen as an energy carrier will be an important player. Hence, the increased focus on ways to produce hydrogen through renewable sources to utilise hydrogen as the energy carrier. One of the ways in which this can be done is using an electrochemical device such as proton exchange membrane electrolysers (PEM-ELs).
PEM-ELs split water using electricity to generate hydrogen and oxygen via electrochemical reactions. However, one of these reactions has sluggish kinetics and hence a large amount of energy is necessary to overcome the high energy barriers. Therefore, electrocatalysts are used in PEM-EL to lower this energy barrier. Currently, unsupported iridium-based catalysts are the most active and stable electrocatalyst for in PEM-ELs. Large amounts of iridium are necessary to overcome low mass activity. However, it is expensive and low in abundance.
One option to reduce its cost and reduce the amount of iridium needed is to support iridium on non-precious metals. Nevertheless, there is still uncertainty about how the iridium and these supports interact during electrocatalysis.
This research has focused on developing non-precious metal catalyst-supports to reduce Ir the amount of iridium needed for the reaction whilst maintaining high activity and stability. By using various synthetic methods, the project’s aim is to investigate the form, shape and structure of the catalyst-support, to understand the role that catalyst-support interaction plays in activity and stability.