Researchers from the University of Toronto have used AI to generate a “recipe” for an exciting new catalyst needed to produce green hydrogen fuel.
As the effects of climate change begin to become more apparent in our everyday lives, research like this could open the door to green hydrogen fuel that could be used for everything from transportation to residential and commercial heating.
While the entire process of creating hydrogen fuel is quite complicated, it can be summarized more simply.
Scientists take water and pass electricity from renewable sources between two pieces of metal called electrodes that are submerged in the water. These electrodes are coated in a catalyst that speed up the process of splitting the water into its two parts – hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. This hydrogen gas is then taken and can be used for fuel.
Until now, iridium oxide was the most widely used catalyst that could withstand the harsh acidic conditions in this reaction. Sadly, iridium is extremely scarce and expensive. This makes it an unsustainable source for large-scale hydrogen production. Ruthenium-based catalysts are more abundant and less expensive than iridium, but they suffer from instability due to the overoxidation of ruthenium atoms during the reaction.
Therefore, the scientists at the University of Toronto endeavored to use AI resources to solve this problem. The team created an AI program to speed up the search for an optimal alloy combination that would act as a catalyst in the water-splitting reaction. This program analyzed over 36,000 different metal oxide combinations through virtual simulations. Traditionally, such a search would require trial and error in the lab.
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