Team creates map for production of eco-friendly metals

In work that could lead to more efficient, eco-friendly processes for the production of important metals, researchers from MIT and SLAC have mapped what is happening at the atomic level behind a particularly promising approach called metal electrolysis.

By creating maps for a wide range of metals, they were able to determine which metals should be easiest to produce using this approach. The map could become an important design tool for the production of all these metals.

Metal -air batteries are cousins of thelithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles.

Fossil fuels are used to produce most of the metals. The high temperatures generated by these fuels allow for the conversion of the original Ore into metal. Steel is a major source of greenhouse gases, accounting for seven percent of carbon dioxide emissions globally. Researchers from around the world are working to find more eco-friendly ways to make metals.

One promising approach is metal electrolysis, in which a metal oxide is zapped with electricity to create pure metal with oxygen as the byproduct. The reaction explored at the atomic level in the current research is reported in the April 8, 2022, issue of the journal Chemistry of Materials.

Donald Siegel is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Siegel was not involved in the Chemistry of Materials study. Our understanding of low-carbon electrolysis processes is clarified by tracing the underlying metal-oxygen interactions back to elementary metal-oxygen interactions. I believe that this work will help in the creation of design rules that will make these processes less dependent on fossil fuels.

The JR East Professor of Engineering in MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering and MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering is a leader of the current work.

We aim to establish some basic understanding to predict the efficiency of electrochemical metal production and metal-air batteries from examining computed thermodynamic barriers for the conversion between metal and metal oxides, says Shao-Horn, who is on the research team for MIT. MIT has a Materials Research Laboratory and Research Laboratory of Electronics.

Other authors of the Chemistry of Materials paper are a graduate student and a first author. She received a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. A graduate student at the school.

There are other applications.

The work could help the development of metal-air batteries. The cousins of the batteries used in electric vehicles have higher energy densities and could be used to power aviation. They are not yet on the market due to a variety of problems.

The metal-air batteries are being charged. Engineers can use the new atomic-level understanding of these reactions to design more efficient metal-air batteries.

Learning from water splitting.

Water can be split into oxygen and hydrogen, which can be used to store energy. That hydrogen could become an eco-friendly alternative to fossil fuels. The team compared the two processes for the first time because of how much is known about water and metal oxides.

Bajdich says that they uncovered the steps involved in metal electrolysis slowly. Lunger says it was unclear to them what those steps were. We had to figure out how to get from A to B.

All of the work was done with computer simulations. Bajdich says it is a little like Legos. The team explored different scenarios for the lysis of several metals. Each involved different catalysts that increase the speed of a reaction.

Lunger says, "To maximize the reaction, you want to find the catalyst that makes it most efficient."

What is next? Lunger is interested in seeing what happens in more complex systems involving multiple metals. Is it possible to make the reaction more efficient if there are other elements present?

More information: Jaclyn R. Lunger et al, Cation-Dependent Multielectron Kinetics of Metal Oxide Splitting, Chemistry of Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c00602 Journal information: Chemistry of Materials Citation: Team creates map for production of eco-friendly metals (2022, April 28) retrieved 28 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-team-production-eco-friendly-metals.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.