Professor Jihoon Lee’s (Department of Electronic Engineering) Research Team Developed a

High Porosity, High Efficiency, and High Stability Cobalt-Manganese-Boron (Comnb) Electrocatalyst Capable of Large-Scale Green Hydrogen Production

- Selected as the cover paper for the September 2022 issue of the Wiley Advanced Sustainable Systems journal -

- Using a cobalt-manganese-boron alloy in the form of a highly porous cluster film with significantly improved surface area, it showed superior performance compared to the standard benchmark electrode Pt/C || RuO2 -

(Left) Ph.D. Researcher Shusen Lin / (Right) Prof. Jihoon Lee

Professor Jihoon Lee's research team in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Kwangwoon University, together with the Ph.D. researcher Shusen Lin (first author) of the Department of Electronic Engineering. The world's first successful development of a cobalt-manganese-boron (CoMnB) alloy electrocatalyst electrode in the form of a high porosity cluster film (HPCF) capable of large-scale, high-efficiency green hydrogen production. The HPCF cobalt-manganese-boron electrocatalyst showed a low two-electrode switching voltage of 1.59 V and excellent bi-functionality at 1 M KOH 20 mA/cm-2. In addition, the HPCF CoMnB electrode outperformed the benchmark electrode at currents over 800 mA/cm-2 compared to the “Pt/C||RuO2” standard benchmark electrode at 1 M KOH. The hydrogen/oxygen production performance was superior to that of the benchmark electrode under high current industrial electrode operating conditions. HPCF CoMnB also showed good electrocatalytic activity in real seawater 1 M KOH. It showed stable current in the continuous 72-hour operation test at high current, showing excellent stability and excellent repeatability even after repeated testing of 1000 cycles.

This research was carried out with the support of Brain Korea 21 Plus (BK-21 ) promoted by the National Research Foundation of Korea and the Ministry of Education, a key research institute project, and Kwangwoon University. The research result was published in the scientific journal Advanced Sustainable Systems (JCR IF: 6.737) in September 2022 under the title of “Higher Water-Splitting Performance of Boron-Based Porous CoMnB Electrocatalyst over the Benchmarks at High Current in 1 m KOH and Real Sea Water”. It was published and selected as a journal cover in Advanced Sustainable Systems Volume 6, issue 9.

Schematic diagram of cobalt-manganese-boron (CoMnB) alloy electrocatalyst in the form of highly porous cluster film for high-efficiency green hydrogen production (Journal Cover- Advanced Sustainable Systems, Vol 6 Iss 9, 2022) 

* Research publishment: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/23667486/current