Water electrolysis is a key technology to establish CO₂-neutral hydrogen production. One of the key technological hurdles is the design of stable, active and affordable catalysts for the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is one bottleneck of the hydrogen production process. Researchers from the Interface Science Department have now provided quantitative near-surface structural insights into oxygen-evolving CoO_x(OH)_y nanoparticles which are published in Nature Energy today.

The way how molecules involved in chemical reactions bind to the surface of a catalyst is key to understand and improve the catalyst’s performance. Researchers from the Fritz Haber Institute and the Danish Aarhus University have now developed a machine learning algorithm that can predict this important property for complex molecules that can bind to the surface in multiple motives.
 

Researchers at the NOMAD Laboratory at the Fritz Haber Institute have been engaged in describing how surfaces change in contact with reactive gas phases under different temperature and pressure conditions. For this purpose, they have developed the so-called replica exchange grand canonical method (REGC). The results were published in the journal Physical Review Letters on 17 June.

The CatLab project now presented itself very successfully at the international conference on "Challenges on Renewable Energy Storage" in Liblice near Prague. In addition to the FHI, the Helmholtz Centre Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion are also involved in the joint catalysis research for better use of green hydrogen.

A public discussion event at the Science and Technology Park Berlin Adlershof on 6 October, 4 pm, will take a self-critical look at the contribution of the sciences to the challenges of our time. Among those discussing on the panel with moderator Thomas Prinzler are: Jule Specht, Professor of Personality Psychology, Humboldt University, Roland Sillmann, Managing Director of WISTA Management GmbH and Jutta Allmendinger, President of the Social Science Research Center Berlin.