Professor Junghee Lee and Professor Namhoon Kim of the Department of Nano Convergence Engineering have developed a non-precious metal catalyst that enables low-cost mass production of green hydrogen, attracting international attention from the academic community.

The Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) research team developed a new catalyst fabrication technique that produces nano multidimensional-structured catalysts for green hydrogen production. The method uses very inexpensive metals, iron and tin, and can be manufactured by a relatively simple process.

An alkaline electrolyzer cell employing the developed catalyst (Fe0.33Sn0.67OSe(+,-)) demonstrated excellent performance. The commonly used commercial platinum–ruthenium catalyst showed a cell voltage of approximately 1.545 V @ 10 mA cm-2, whereas the developed catalyst showed approximately 1.490 V @ 10 mA cm-2, outperforming the precious-metal catalyst. A lower cell voltage indicates better performance.

The researchers also reported that the catalyst showed outstanding durability compared with existing commercial products, and they expect commercialization in the near future.

This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT's Regional Leading Research Program (RLRC) and the Ministry of Education's BK-21 Four project. The work was carried out through collaborative research with Department of Nano Convergence Engineering members Kempana Harish (Ph.D. candidate), Nguyen Tan Tuan (postdoctoral researcher), and others.

The study was published in the latest issue of Applied Catalysis B-Environmental (IF=19.503), one of the world’s top journals in the catalyst field, ranking in the top 1%.
 
Green hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis and therefore has zero carbon emissions during production. It is regarded as a key future energy technology in the era of carbon neutrality.

However, producing hydrogen by water electrolysis currently relies on expensive precious-metal catalysts such as platinum (Pt), ruthenium (Ru), and iridium (Ir), resulting in high hydrogen production costs and reduced durability of production equipment.
 
Currently, widely used gray hydrogen and blue hydrogen are either by-product hydrogen generated during crude oil refining or reformed hydrogen produced by reforming natural gas at high temperatures, which runs counter to the core purpose of a hydrogen economy aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.

To date, green hydrogen production using electricity from renewable energy has faced high manufacturing costs and high entry barriers. The development of an inexpensive, highly efficient catalyst suitable for mass production offers a breakthrough to address these issues. 
 
In particular, this research is expected to make a significant contribution to advancing the green hydrogen industry and the hydrogen economy in the Saemangeum region, and it reaffirms that JBNU is conducting world-leading research in this field.

Meanwhile, the supervising professor of this research, Professor Junghee Lee, currently serves as a private-sector member of the Hydrogen Economy Committee, which functions as South Korea’s control tower for the hydrogen economy. In addition to foundational hydrogen technologies, he has rich commercialization experience — including successful technology transfers to industry (e.g., Hyundai Motor Company, development of hydrogen storage tanks for the NEXO fuel cell vehicle) — and thus expresses strong confidence in the commercialization potential of the present catalyst.

The developed catalyst will be applied to actual water electrolysis equipment by AHES (Advanced Hydrogen Energy Solution), a university laboratory venture company founded by the research team, to manufacture high-efficiency water electrolysis devices.