According to foreign media reports, an interdisciplinary research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany has produced platinum nanoparticles for the catalytic process of fuel cells. The size of the new catalyst has been optimized and is similar to the most industrialized ones so far. Compared with platinum particles made by the best technology, its performance is doubled.

　　Fuel cells can replace batteries and become the power source for electric vehicles. Fuel cells consume renewable hydrogen (which can be produced from surplus electricity from wind farms, for example), but the platinum used in fuel cells is very scarce and extremely expensive, limiting their large-scale application.

　　A research team at the Technical University of Munich in Germany has now optimized the size of platinum particles to achieve twice the performance of particles produced by current commercial processes. The research team was led by Roland Fischer, Professor of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry, Aliaksandr Bandarenka, Department of Physics Energy Conversion and Storage, and Alessio Gagliardi, Professor of Energy Conversion Simulation of Nanosystems.

　　A platinum "egg" (particle) is only one nanometer in size

　　In a fuel cell, hydrogen reacts with oxygen to produce water, producing electricity in the process. To optimize such conversions, a catalyst is required on the electrode, and platinum plays a central role in the oxygen reduction reaction.

　　To find the ideal solution, the research team created a computer model of the entire system. The core question is: How small can the size of platinum clusters be, while still allowing them to have highly active catalytic functions? "It turns out that there is a certain optimal size for platinum particles," Fischer said. Platinum particles of about 1 nanometer, containing about 40 platinum atoms, are ideal. "A platinum catalyst of this size is small but has a large number of highly active sites," Bandarenka said.

　　Interdisciplinary collaboration at the Catalyst Research Center (CRC) was an important factor in the team's findings, combining modeling theory, collaborative discussions, and physical and chemical knowledge gained from experiments, ultimately allowing the researchers to create a model that demonstrates How to design catalysts based on the ideal shape, size, and distribution of components in a fuel cell. In addition, CRC has the expertise to create and experimentally test such platinum nanocatalysts.

　　Twice as effective as the best catalysts

　　The experiments confirmed the researchers' theoretical predictions. Garlyyev said: "The catalyst we made is twice as effective as the best catalyst currently on the market." However, since the current platinum content has only been reduced by 50%, it is still not enough to achieve commercial application and must be reduced by 80%.

　　In addition to spherical platinum nanoparticles, the researchers also hope to study platinum nanoparticles with more complex shapes but higher catalytic activity. Computer models are ideal for modeling, but "more complex shapes require more sophisticated synthesis methods," says Andarenka.

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