February 2017

For the development of stationary energy storage hydrogen is an environmental way to store energy in form of chemical energy. Therefore, the reaction at the anode is of great interest. A fundamental problem is the large overpotential and the stability of the electrode to produce oxygen at low costs. These essential conditions are only fulfilled by rare earth metal oxides which are expensive to purchase. Nature uses a calcium-manganese oxide complex to catalyze the oxygen development reaction. The mechanism behind is not fully clarified, which makes these material class an interesting field of research. In the picture an activity and stability measurement of a manganese catalyst is shown. Aim of the research is to influence the defect chemistry of binary and ternary manganese oxides to improve the activity and stability of the crystal phase. (Picture submitted by Raika Oppermann and Christoph Richter.)