Multishelled fullerenes beat graphene at catalysing water splitting

Moving from flat to curved catalytic carbon supports could help reduce the amount and cost of platinum needed for hydrogen production in water splitting. In a new study published in Nature Energy, aimed at improving the efficiency of electrocatalytic processes, a team of scientists led by Li Song and Jun Jiang from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) used platinum decorated spherical onion-like carbon (OLC) catalysts with platinum atoms deposited on their outermost surface instead of flat graphene supports. This method reduced the amount of platinum atoms otherwise needed by about 75% while maintaining or improving the rate of the electrochemical hydrogen production process.