Case 14882

Asymmetry of Multi-electron Transfer Kinetics in Oxygen Electrocatalysis and its Application for Highly Active Catalyst Design

Keywords:

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), electrolyzer, hydrogen fuel cells, solar-driven water splitting

Applications:

Hydrogen fuel cells, solar-driven water splitting (electrolyzer)

Problem:
  • OER and ORR are two limiting processes that each contributes ~0.4 V loss.
  • Cost and scarcity of noble metal oxide catalysts is prohibitive for practice applications.

    • Technology:

    The invention describes a method to design efficient, abundant, non-precious-metal catalysts for OER. The design principle looks to develop a more active OER catalyst by engineering the eg filling to a value of ~1.3-1.4. With proper understanding, tuning surface electronic features like the transition metal eg filling is a promising strategy to develop highly active non-precious-metal containing oxide catalysts than can have higher activity than state-of-the-art precious metal-containing material.

    Advantages:
    • Highly active non-precious-metal containing oxide catalysts for O2 electrocatalysis
    • Step toward implementation of hydrogen-based renewable energy
    • More cost-effective

    Inventors:
    • Professor Yang Shao-Horn (Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
    • Jin Suntivich (Department of Material Science and Engineering, MIT)
    • Kevin J. May (Department of Mechanical Engineer, MIT)
    • Hubert A. Gasteiger (Department of Chemistry, Technishe Universitat Munchen)
    • John B. Goodenough (Texas Materials Institute, University of Texas at Austin)

    Intellectual Property:

    UA Patent Application 13/185939 filed on July 19, 2011.

    Publications:

    Jin Suntivich, Kevin J. May, Hubert A. Gasteiger, John B. Goodenough and Yang Shao-Horn A Perovskite Oxide Optimized for Oxygen Evolution Catalysis from Molecular Orbital Principles SCIENCE EXPRESS DOI: 10.1126/science.1212858 (October 2011)

    MIT News (10/28/2011): Highly Efficient Oxygen Catalyst Found

    Last revised: December 16, 2011

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