Getting precious metals out of green energy with catalysts (and putting carbon back in)

From plastics, to pharmaceuticals, to fertilisers, most industrial chemicals are made with catalysts.

Catalysts don’t get consumed in the manufacturing process  – they just make the reactions possible.

But the world is going to need more catalysts as we decarbonise, particularly to use in making hydrogen fuel and capturing carbon.

According to Professor Liming Dai, director of the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation, and a researcher at the University of New South Wales, to be genuinely sustainable  we’re going to need to update our catalyst science – and get rid of some metals.

Cosmos spoke to Dai at the First Australian Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, being held in Cairns this week.

“Now, people use metal-based catalysts, particularly for clean and renewable energy technologies,” he says.

Noble metals (not the same as noble gases), including silver, platinum, palladium and gold, are particularly good catalysts.

These metals are all expensive, and difficult to mine in large quantities.

“Critical minerals, including the noble metals and some precious metals, are concentrated in several countries only. So, due to geopolitical risks, the price of noble metals will increase further,” says Dai.