London: Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have designed a new type of nanostructuredcarbonbased catalyst that could pave the way for reliable, economical nextgeneration batteries and alkaline fuel cells, providing for practical use of wind and solarpowered electricity, as well as enhanced hybrid electric vehicles.



The new material has the highest oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity in alkaline media of any nonprecious metal catalyst developed to date. This activity is critical for efficient storage of electrical energy.



The new catalyst doesn't use precious metals such as platinum, ugg bailey button boots which is more expensive per ounce than gold, yet it performs under certain conditions as effectively as many wellknown and prohibitively expensive preciousmetal catalysts developed for battery and fuelcell use.



Moreover, although the catalyst is based on nitrogencontaining carbon nanotubes, it does not require the tedious, toxic and costly processing that is usually required when converting such materials for catalytic use.



"These findings could help forge a path between nanostructuredcarbonbased materials and alkaline fuel cells, metalair batteries and cheap ugg bailey button boots certain electrolyzers," said Zelenay.



"A lithiumair secondary battery, potentially the mostpromising metalair battery known, has an energy storage potential that is 10 times greater than a stateoftheart lithiumion battery. Consequently, the new catalyst makes possible the creation of economical lithiumair batteries that could power electric vehicles, or provide efficient, reliable energy storage for intermittent sources of green energy, such as windmills or solar panels."



The scientists developed an ingenious method for synthesizing the new catalyst using readily available chemicals that allow preparation of the material in a single step. They also demonstrated that the synthesis method can be scaled up to larger volumes and could also be used to prepare other carbonnanotubebased materials.



Los Alamos researchers Hoon T. Chung, Piotr Zelenay and Jong H. Won, the latter now at the Korea Basic Science Institute, described the new type of nitrogendoped carbonnanotube catalyst in Nature Communications.