The demand for clean energy has never been higher, and it has created a global race to develop new technologies as alternatives to fossil fuels. Among the most tantalizing of these green energy technologies is fuel cells. They use hydrogen as fuel to cleanly produce electricity and could power everything from long-haul trucks to major industrial processes.
However, fuel cells are held back by sluggish kinetics in a part of the core chemical reaction that limits efficiency. But, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have discovered new dynamics that could supercharge this reaction using iron-based single-atom catalysts.
The researchers developed a new method to improve the oxygen reduction portion of the chemical reaction in fuel cells, in which O2 molecules are split to create water. They did so through a “hydrogel anchoring strategy” that creates densely packed sets of…
Breathing new life into fuel cells — ScienceDaily
