Nature, the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal, has recognised a pioneering research paper and study led by Prof Krishanu Biswas from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur. The study, conducted in collaboration with a team of researchers from various institutions, focuses on a special alloy that could potentially revolutionise the conversion and affordable energy storage from renewable sources. It stands among India’s high-impact research papers, shaping the realm of science.

Prof Krishanu Biswas, alongside fellow researchers from IIT Mandi, IIT Kharagpur, and IISc Bangalore, researched a special kind of material called a high entropy alloy (HEA), comprising a mix of five elements – cobalt, iron, gallium, nickel, and zinc. Their research focused on its application in the process of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. This breakthrough holds immense significance in many technological applications such as electrolysers, fuel cells, and catalysis. The most important aspect of water splitting is its ability to efficiently separate water, abundantly available on the earth, into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is considered a clean substitute for fossil fuels with net-zero emissions.

This research categorically demonstrates the effectiveness of this innovative alloy, surpassing the performance and durability of expensive materials such as ruthenium oxide, currently used for the same purpose. The materials of the study are made up of earth-abundant elements, making them sustainable and easy to fabricate for application.

The research paper titled ‘Low-cost high entropy alloy (HEA) for high-efficiency oxygen evolution reaction (OER)’ was published in the Nano Research Journal in its edition dated 2022, 15 (6) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12274-021-3802-4.

The study has wide ramifications in the green hydrogen economy in which energy-rich hydrogen is extracted from water through electrochemical water splitting. This process is a highly promising sustainable and pollution-free green hydrogen and oxygen production approach.

The process requires immersion of two electrodes in an electrolyte solution. The chemical reactions at the electrodes driving the production of oxygen and hydrogen gas require efficient bifunctional catalysts. However, the process was not commercially viable as most electrochemical systems use rare and expensive metals that restrict their use in large-scale applications.

On the other hand, low-cost systems were not able to achieve efficient catalysis. The novel alloy catalyst designed, developed, and tested by Prof Biswas and his collaborators can make this process easier and more affordable by using low-cost high-entropy alloy to store energy from renewable sources, allowing the use of clean energy. This could further revolutionise the scientific stride towards a cleaner environment, thereby reducing dependence on fossil fuels and mitigating global warming.

Besides Prof Krishanu Biswas, the other researchers in the team included Dr Nirmal Kumar Katiyar from IIT Kanpur, Prof Aditi Halder and Dr Lalita Sharma from IIT Mandi, Prof Chandra Sekhar Tiwary and Dr Rakesh Das from IIT Kharagpur, Prof Abhishek K Singh, Dr Arko Parui and Dr Ritesh Kumar from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.
Details of the article in Nature Magazine: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03913-7 Nature 624, S34-S36 (2023)