In the global race to decarbonize, hydrogen stands out as one of the most promising clean fuels. But despite its potential to power industries and transportation without emitting carbon, producing hydrogen sustainably in a water electrolyzer has been limited by the high cost and scarcity of one critical ingredient: iridium.
Now, a team of researchers at Rice University has developed a new catalyst that dramatically reduces the amount of iridium needed in proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzers, a key technology for generating green hydrogen from water. Their innovation — an iridium-stabilized ruthenium oxide catalyst that uses just one-sixth as much iridium as conventional systems — maintains industrial-level performance for more than 1,500 hours of continuous operation. The research was recently published in Nature Nanotechnology.
That is what I assumed. Figured it would mainly replace stationary power storage where energy density matters less. Hasn’t stopped them rolling out sodium-ion scooters. I would have assumed that was just too tiny.
Yea, it’s definitely not bad for stationary storage, at least when compensating for the current limits as the charge drops.