From Hydrogenases to Noble Metal–Free Catalytic Nanomaterials for H 2 Production and Uptake

Interconversion of water and hydrogen in unitized regenerative fuel cells is a promising energy storage framework for smoothing out the temporal fluctuations of solar and wind power. However, replacement of presently available platinum catalysts by lower-cost and more abundant materials is a requisite for this technology to become economically viable. Here, we show that the covalent attachment of a nickel bisdiphosphine-based mimic of the active site of hydrogenase enzymes onto multiwalled carbon nanotubes results in a high-surface area cathode material with high catalytic activity under the strongly acidic conditions required in proton exchange membrane technology. Hydrogen evolves from aqueous sulfuric acid…