Novel nanofibre boosts hopes for future energy methods

The creation of a new nanofibre could help enable the production of next generation rechargeable batteries, according to US researchers.

These double perovskite nanofibres can be used as a highly efficient catalyst in ultrafast reactions that create oxygen. This could result in an increased efficiency of hydrogen production from water electrolysis and metal-air batteries.

Professor Meilin Liu, from Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering, said: “Metal-air batteries, such as those that could power electric vehicles in the future, are able to store a lot of energy in a much smaller space than current batteries. The problem is that the batteries lack a cost-efficient catalyst to improve their efficiency. This new catalyst will improve that process.”

When creating the fibres from perovskite crystals, the researchers used a technique called composition tuning, or co-doping, to improve the intrinsic activity of the catalyst by 4.7 times. The fibres, created by electrospinning, have the thinnest diameter ever created for perovskite oxide nanofibres – 20nm. Their capability to create oxygen is almost three times greater than iridium oxide, which is considered by scientists as a high performance catalyst.

The increase in catalytic activity can be partly attributed to the larger surface area of the nanofibres. In addition to potential applications in metal-air batteries, these fibres could also be the next stage in creating more efficient fuel cell technologies.

Liu said: “Solar, wind, geothermal - those are becoming very inexpensive today. But the trouble is those renewable energies are intermittent in nature. When there is no wind, you have no power. But what if we could store the energy from the sun or the wind when there's an excess supply? We can use that extra electricity to produce hydrogen and store that energy for use when we need it."

The study was published in Nature Communications.