NewHydrogen, Inc. has executed an agreement to further expand the existing sponsored research agreement with the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to develop technology to reduce the cost of green hydrogen production.

With an increased budget, the new agreement expands the scope of the non-precious metal based oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst development program.

The UCLA researchers recently created a non-precious metal based catalyst that demonstrated significant improvement of OER in acidic conditions by substituting part of the existing metal element in the aforementioned catalyst material structure. The catalyst’s low cost and high durability make it a good candidate toward the commercial water electrolysis systems operating at high current densities.

“We are very pleased to broaden our clean energy research program at UCLA with Dr. Huang and her team, a group whose collaboration we have a high level of confidence in,” said David Lee, CEO of NewHydrogen. “Thus we have decided to further extend the OER side of the sponsored research program.”

The company’s previous amendment to the sponsored research program expanded its focus on significantly reducing or replacing the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst, platinum. Only 200 t of platinum is mined every year and yet its demand is ever increasing in applications such as batteries, fuel cells, fiber optics, LCD displays, cancer treatment and many others.

The researchers plan on scaling up the process for studies in electrolyzers in a later phase. Eventually, a fully functional hydrogen-producing electrolyzer incorporating the Company’s OER catalyst as well as HER catalyst will serve as a reference prototype to help electrolyzer manufacturers worldwide to assess NewHydrogen’s planned technology to produce low-cost green hydrogen.