- Goal is to lower the cost of green hydrogen by eliminating or drastically reducing the use of precious metals in electrolyzers.
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — NewHydrogen, Inc. NEWH, the developer of a green hydrogen generator, today reported on the progress of its Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) catalyst that does not use iridium and is for use in proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers.
The goal of NewHydrogen’s sponsored research at UCLA is to lower the cost of green hydrogen by eliminating or drastically reducing the use of precious metals in electrolyzers. Electrolyzers currently rely on rare materials such as iridium and platinum. These materials often account for a substantial portion of the cost of electrolyzers.
In 2021, researchers at UCLA funded by NewHydrogen developed a non-precious metal-based catalyst that does not use iridium but with significant improvement of OER in acidic conditions for PEM electrolyzers. Ongoing research at UCLA since then has focused on identifying optimal modification methods as well as establishing scientific evidence supporting the superior performance. In-depth analysis of the catalytic materials before and after the structural modification may also provide a path to further improvements in the future.
As previously mentioned in the Company’s June 2022 report, the OER catalyst samples before and after structure modification were subjected to a number of tests and measurements. The resulting data have been further analyzed to establish the key scientific evidence supporting the superior performance of its OER catalyst:
- Doped elements were positioned within the modified structure of the catalyst in a specific manner associated with the enhanced material characteristics, thus deemed to be the origin of the superior OER performance.
- After extended OER cycles, average distance between certain atoms and coordination atoms within the modified catalyst changed substantially less than that of the catalyst without modification. Smaller change in average distance suggests a higher stability of the modified catalyst.
“We are very pleased to see the exciting progress being made in our green hydrogen program at UCLA,” said Dr. David Lee, CEO of NewHydrogen. “We have great confidence in Dr. Huang and her team. We look forward to seeing more exciting achievements as we methodically expand our technology focus beyond catalysts in 2023.”
About NewHydrogen, Inc.
NewHydrogen is developing a breakthrough green hydrogen generator that uses renewable energy to produce low-cost green hydrogen. Hydrogen is the cleanest and most abundant fuel in the universe. It is zero-emission and only produces water vapor when used. Unfortunately, hydrogen does not exist in its pure form on Earth so it must be extracted from a source that contains hydrogen. For centuries, scientists have known how to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using a simple and elegant device called an electrolyzer. Unfortunately, an electrolyzer – the primary component of a hydrogen generator – is still very expensive. NewHydrogen is developing breakthrough technologies to enable the next generation of low cost electrolyzers. The Company’s initial focus is on replacing and reducing expensive rare earth materials, to help usher in the green hydrogen economy that Goldman Sachs estimated to have a future market value of $12 trillion. www.newhydrogen.com.
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