Curated News
By: NewsRamp Editorial Staff
December 23, 2025
Breakthrough Catalyst Cuts Hydrogen Production Energy While Cleaning Toxic Waste
TLDR
- A new ruthenium-carbon catalyst from Gyeongsang National University enables hydrogen production at dramatically lower voltages, offering substantial energy cost savings for green energy systems.
- The Ru@C-200 catalyst uses laser-engineered ruthenium nanospheres in carbon shells to achieve ultralow overpotentials for hydrogen evolution and hydrazine oxidation reactions simultaneously.
- This technology combines clean hydrogen fuel generation with purification of toxic hydrazine pollutants, creating a dual solution for energy and environmental challenges.
- Researchers created a catalyst that powers hydrogen production while cleaning wastewater, demonstrated in a self-powered zinc-hydrazine battery that runs for 600 cycles.
Impact - Why it Matters
This development represents a significant advancement in sustainable energy technology with dual environmental benefits. For industries and energy producers, it offers a practical solution to two major challenges: reducing the high energy costs of hydrogen production and managing hazardous hydrazine waste streams. By enabling hydrogen generation at voltages dramatically lower than traditional electrolysis while simultaneously converting toxic pollutants into harmless nitrogen, this technology could accelerate the adoption of hydrogen as a clean fuel source. For consumers and society, this means potential reductions in energy costs for hydrogen-powered vehicles and industries, plus cleaner water systems as industrial hydrazine contamination is addressed. The self-powered model demonstrated with the zinc–hydrazine battery also points toward more integrated, efficient energy systems that combine production, storage, and environmental remediation—a crucial step toward circular economy principles in energy infrastructure.
Summary
A research team from Gyeongsang National University has developed a groundbreaking laser-engineered ruthenium-carbon core–shell catalyst that dramatically lowers the energy barrier for hydrogen production while simultaneously degrading a toxic industrial pollutant. The optimized Ru@C-200 configuration, created using a pulsed-laser ablation-in-liquid strategy, achieves ultralow overpotentials of just 48 mV for hydrogen evolution and 8 mV for hydrazine oxidation at 10 mA cm⁻², far outperforming conventional electrocatalysts. This bifunctional material accelerates both the hydrogen evolution reaction and the hydrazine oxidation reaction, enabling large hydrogen yields at exceptionally low voltages while converting hazardous hydrazine into harmless nitrogen.
Published in the prestigious journal eScience, the study demonstrates how the catalyst's unique structure—with uniform ruthenium nanospheres encapsulated within graphitic carbon shells—creates electronically coupled metal–carbon interfaces that enable rapid reaction kinetics and high durability. Comprehensive characterization using Transmission Electron Microscopy, X-ray Diffraction, Raman Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, and Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure confirmed the fcc-structured metallic Ru core and enhanced carbon shell ordering. The research reveals that metallic Ru sites drive hydrogen evolution while surface-generated RuOOH species catalyze hydrazine oxidation, making this a true multifunctional electrocatalyst.
When integrated into practical applications, the Ru@C-200 catalyst shows remarkable performance. In a hydrazine-splitting electrolyzer, a Ru@C-200‖Ru@C-200 pair required only 0.11 V to achieve 10 mA cm⁻² and maintained stability for over 100 hours. The team further demonstrated a rechargeable zinc–hydrazine battery capable of powering hydrogen production independently, achieving 90% energy efficiency and remaining stable across 600 charge–discharge cycles. This innovative approach combines green energy generation with pollutant removal in a single system, offering substantial energy savings compared to traditional water electrolysis while addressing industrial wastewater challenges.
Source Statement
This curated news summary relied on content disributed by 24-7 Press Release. Read the original source here, Breakthrough Catalyst Cuts Hydrogen Production Energy While Cleaning Toxic Waste
