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A team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found one of the most effective catalysts ever discovered for splitting oxygen atoms from water molecules—a key reaction for advanced energy-storage systems, including electrolyzers, to produce hydrogen fuel and rechargeable batteries. This new catalyst liberates oxygen at more than 10 times the rate of the best previously known catalyst of its type. The new compound, composed of cobalt, iron and oxygen with other metals, splits oxygen from water (called the Oxygen Evolution Reaction, or OER) at a rate at least an order of magnitude higher than the compound currently considered the gold standard for such reactions, the team says. The compound’s high level of activity was predicted from a systematic experimental study that looked at the catalytic activity of 10 known compounds.

Many other groups have been searching for more efficient catalysts to speed the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction is key to the production of hydrogen as a fuel to be used in cars; the operation of some rechargeable batteries, including zinc-air batteries; and to generate electricity in devices called fuel cells. Two catalysts are needed for such a reaction—one that liberates the hydrogen atoms, and another for the oxygen atoms—but the oxygen reaction has been the limiting factor in such systems.

Jens Norskov, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University and director of the Suncat Center for Interface Science and Catalysis there, who was not involved in this work, says, “I find this an extremely interesting ‘rational design’ approach to finding new catalysts for a very important and demanding problem.”

The research, which was done in collaboration with visiting professor Hubert A. Gasteiger (currently a professor at the Technische Universität München in Germany) and professor John B. Goodenough from the University of Texas at Austin, was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Initiative, the National Science Foundation, the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Chesonis Foundation.

New catalyst highly effective at splitting oxygen from water