Same green hydrogen, a quarter of the precious metal: a Korean catalyst rewrites the cost maths

Green hydrogen — made by splitting water with clean electricity — has a cost problem: the catalysts that speed up the reaction lean on expensive precious metals, and much of that metal sits buried inside particles where it never gets to work. A team led by Professor Lee Jin-woo at KAIST in South Korea has built a catalyst that spreads the metal so nearly every atom can work, while keeping neighbouring atoms close enough to share the job. In a laboratory electrolyser it carried 9.82 amperes per square centimetre — matching a commercial platinum catalyst (9.77) that used four times as much precious metal. Same performance, a quarter of the costly ingredient: exactly the kind of quiet maths that makes clean fuels cheaper.

SDG 7 · Affordable and clean energy — Mechanism: tech innovation