Advances in catalytic hydrogen evolution

Hydrogen gas has the potential to be a green alternative to traditional non-renewable energy sources. This is, in part, due to its high specific energy versus gasoline and natural gas, but also because the principal byproduct of its combustion is water. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen has now become an intense area of research. Great progress has been made exploring hydrogen generation with electro-, photo-, and photoelectrocatalytic approaches. Through catalyst design, material optimization, and mechanistic investigation, it is now possible to produce hydrogen efficiently and at high purities. Meanwhile, applied research to scale the reaction beyond the laboratory has begun and promises to allow the next steps in the evolution of hydrogen gas generation.

This collection encourages submissions related to hydrogen evolution catalysis, particularly where hydrogen gas is the primary product. This is a cross-journal partnership between the Energy Materials team at Nature Communications with Communications Chemistry, Communications Engineering, Communications Materials, and Scientific Reports. We seek studies covering a range of perspectives including materials design & development, catalytic performance, or underlying mechanistic understanding. Other works focused on potential applications and large-scale demonstration of hydrogen evolution are also welcome.