The development of improved and lower cost electrode materials is critical to produce cheaper, cleaner and more reliable hydrogen fuel for use in hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles. A central challenge is creating materials that maximise the efficiency of every costly catalytic atom. This presentation will discuss the formation of hierarchical metal nanostructures and their decoration with catalytically active metals. These materials form a promising class of nanoscale electrode materials that are capable of dramatically improving the efficiency of energy technologies by combining: i) 3D nanostructure that provides highly accessible surfaces with lower material usage, and ii) optimised catalytic performance at each atomic site through co-catalytic metal-support interactions.
The nanoscale electrodes harness a 3D metal framework structure with crystalline, interconnected architectures that display high electrical conductivity and chemically modifiable surfaces. These materials achieved electrochemically active surface areas up to 150 times greater than micron-scale foams, providing a highly accessible surface for catalyst deposition. The nanoscale electrodes can further boost the performance of catalysts by introducing co-catalytic metal-support interactions whereby the metal nanostructure is directly involved in bond breaking and formation processes that accelerate the catalytic mechanism.
This work will introduce a synthetic platform for constructing 3D nanoscale electrodes that combine high surface area, conductivity, and tunability with co-catalytic interactions for efficient electrocatalytic hydrogen fuel production.