Bimetallic Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution and Oxidation Reactions
Hydrogenevolution reaction (HER) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) are criticalreactions for fuel production and fuel cell development. An efficientnon-precious metal catalyst is one of the key components for CO2-freehydrogen production. This invention describes a method for identifying andsynthesizing nanoporous copper-titanium (np-CuTi) bimetallic electrocatalystwhich is able to produce hydrogen from water at a rate more than two timeshigher than that of the current state-of-the-art carbon supported Pt catalyst.Although both Cu and Ti are known poor HER catalysts, the combination of theseelements creates unique hollow sites, which have a hydrogen binding energy verysimilar to that of Pt, resulting in an exceptional HER activity. Additionally,the hierarchical porosity of the np-CuTi catalyst contributes to its high HERactivity, because it not only provides a large surface area forelectrocatalytic HER, but also improves the mass transport properties.Moreover, the np-CuTi catalyst is self-supported, eliminating the overpotential associated with the catalyst/support interface. The electrochemicalcharacterization comparing this novel catalyst with the existing Pt basedcatalyst is shown below in the figure.
United States
Patent Pending
美国
