Cooperative Catalysts for Electrochemical Hydrogen Activation

In a carbon-constrained economy, the use of renewable electricity to extract hydrogen from water and activate it toward subsequent hydrogenation reactions is certain to be a cornerstone of the chemical industry. Nonetheless, the elementary mechanisms of hydrogen activation under electrochemical conditions remain rather poorly understood. Our research group is addressing this challenge by investigating the synergistic reactivity of metal/metal-oxide heterostructures in heterogeneous proton-electron transfer reactions. This presentation will summarize recent work in two ongoing projects. The first involves alloy@oxide core-shell nanoparticles for electrochemical hydrogen evolution and oxidation in alkaline electrolytes, where we have gathered evidence that Ni-based catalysts exhibit much greater intrinsic catalytic activity than previously thought—possibly even approaching that of platinum. The second project encompasses parallel investigations of electrochemical hydrogen intercalation and thermochemical hydrogen spillover in reducible metal oxides like WO₃, where we are using experimental and computational tools to develop unique design strategies for electrochemically intensified hydrogenation reactions.