SpinCat

Hydrogen tops the EU’s list as a promising, clean, cost-effective and low-carbon fuel, and water electrolysis based on renewable energy represents a potential technology for its production. However, wide implementation is prevented by the requirement of rare and expensive platinum group metals (PGMs) to catalyse the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction and the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Therefore, the development of efficient PGM-free catalysts is instrumental for realising the EU's decarbonisation objectives. The EU-funded SpinCat project will create a new class of magnetic earth-abundant catalysts that, through spin polarisation, can promote catalytic activity towards OER by a factor of three as compared to state-of- the-art catalysts, establishing cost-effective hydrogen production without the use of PGMs.