by A research team at Texas A&M University, led by chemical engineering professor Dr. Abdoulaye Djire, is making significant progress in developing a sustainable pathway for green hydrogen production. The team’s research focuses on utilizing efficient electrocatalysts, particularly a new class of 2D materials called MXenes, to support Ru-atom in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysis.
Currently, platinum is the benchmark catalyst for HER catalysis, but it is an expensive noble metal. Dr. Djire and his team aim to replace platinum with these inexpensive MXenes catalysts, which will significantly reduce the cost of green hydrogen production.
The use of green hydrogen is crucial as over 95% of hydrogen used in the chemical industry is currently produced through steam methane reforming, a fossil fuel method with negative environmental impacts. Djire emphasizes that this commercial method is unsustainable and contributes to global warming. The team’s research paves the way for sustainable hydrogen technologies that rely on cheap, earth-abundant materials and renewable electricity.
The team has been successful in reducing the cost of catalysts used in green hydrogen production by half. David Kumar Yesudoss, a chemical engineering graduate student involved in the research, describes their work as focused on designing and evaluating materials for sustainable chemical production. By inserting metal into the structure of the MXenes material, they were able to enhance its electro-catalytic performance, making it comparable to that of noble metals.
The ultimate goal of the team is to further reduce the cost of the system by refining the particle size down to the level of individual atoms. Yesudoss explains that the size of one atom is less than a nanometer, which is roughly 50,000 times smaller than a human hair. This approach will ensure each atom is effectively utilized for green hydrogen production.
The team collaborated with Dr. Kingsley Obodo from North-West University in South Africa, who performed density functional theory calculations to demonstrate synergistic effects between Ru and MXene. This collaboration was established through the U.S.-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine symposium in Nairobi, Kenya.
The results of the study showed that Ru atoms preferentially attach to the surfaces of MXene. This discovery opens up a new approach to tuning the electrocatalytic activity of MXenes, accelerating the development of cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable hydrogen technology. Dr. Miladin Radovic, a materials science and engineering professor involved in the research, emphasizes that this study opens up a promising application of MXenes as catalysts for HER.
If further developed, this technology has the potential to revolutionize the chemical industry. Dr. Djire envisions a future where green hydrogen becomes the primary source of hydrogen production, replacing the unsustainable methods currently in use.
The research team also includes graduate students and undergraduate students from the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M, as well as Dr. Kingsley Obodo from HySa Infrastructure at North-West University in South Africa. The collaboration between Dr. Djire and Dr. Obodo began during the U.S.-Africa Frontiers symposium last year, where they realized the complementary nature of their work in computational chemistry.
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1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
2. We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
