Scientists create ultra-efficient catalyst using only a tiny amount of platinum

By mixing tiny amounts of this precious metal with gallium, Australian researchers have created a new form of platinum with the immense advantage of remaining liquid at room temperature.

An innovative approach

Powerful catalyst for a wide range of reactions, the platinum is generally used in fuel cells and in catalytic converters, aiming to limit the harmfulness of exhaust gases from internal combustion vehicles. Size problem, it is one of the rarest metals on Earthwhich greatly limits its use.

In the context of work published in the journal Nature Chemistryresearchers from theuniversity of new south wales found a new way to drastically reduce the amount of platinum needed for these reactions. Rather than attaching them to a solid matrix, the team placed the atoms of the precious metal suspended in a liquid solution.

The platinum was first dissolved in gallium at about 300°C for a few hours. Once cooled, the mixture formed a catalytic material that remained liquid above the melting point of gallium, which is 29.8°C, compared to 1,768°C for traditional platinum.

Being able to carry out oxidation and reduction reactions (where oxygen is added or removed from a substance), the liquid catalyst has proven to be a thousand times more efficient than a solid catalyst composed of 10% platinum, when even the precious metal was only 0.0001% of the atoms in the alloy. Even better, the researchers found that the byproducts did not accumulate on the surface of the catalyst and reduce its effects, as they do for its solid counterparts.

Significant benefits

Looking more closely at the liquid catalyst, the team also found that the platinum atoms did not form clusters, remaining dispersed throughout the gallium and even appearing to influence the latter to participate in ” catalytic work “.

According to the team, this new technique offering the same or even more powerful catalytic effects with significantly lower amounts of this precious metal will optimize the use of our meager platinum reserves, which will lead to a reduction in the cost of devices by integrating.

But the benefits are not limited to platinum. According to the team, this type of liquid metal catalyst could be tested with more than 1,000 other possible combinations of elements, giving rise to as many different reactions, which will be explored in future work.