Hydrogen fuel articles from across Nature Portfolio

The way catalysts are arranged and interfaced to form fuel cell electrodes is just as important as the catalysts themselves. Here Lee et al. report an up to 50% increase in performance and superior durability using grooved, rather than conventional flat, electrodes for hydrogen fuel cells.

Hydrogen–metal surface interactions play an important role in energy technologies and metal corrosion, but a thorough understanding of these interactions at the nanoscale remains elusive due to detection limits and the volatility of pure hydrogen. Here, the authors use transmission electron microscopy to show that hydrogen adsorbs directly at the (0001) surfaces of hexagonal helium bubbles within neutron irradiated beryllium.

Vast majority of photocatalysts for hydrogen production relies on additional sacrificial agents and noble metal cocatalysts. It is of great importance yet challenging to achieve photocatalytic overall water splitting with decent performance. Here, the authors report Ni₂P based photocatalyst assisted by H₂O₂-craking reaction for overall water splitting with H₂ and O₂ production of 1507 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ H₂ and 702 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹.

One major technological obstacle for membrane-based alkaline water electrolyzer is the inefficient hydrogen evolution reaction. Here, the authors report a platinum/fullerene heterostructure catalyst, which shows enhanced activity for hydrogen production due to the diverse interface between platinum and fullerene.

Syngas is an industrially highly relevant gaseous mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, but its production is energy-intense and relies on natural gas precursors and noble-metal catalysts. Here, the authors explore metal-organic chalcogenolate assemblies (MOCHAs) for tuneable syngas production via electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction.

Integrating green hydrogen production with the generation of valuable chemicals has the potential to increase the competitiveness of the system. Here, the authors quantitatively evaluate the energetic benefit of coupling hydrogen production with the hydrogenation of feedstocks in a photoelectrochemical device.