07/30/2024
By Brooke Coupal

Noble metals, such as gold and platinum, show great potential in renewable energy. 

Very tiny pieces of noble metals, known as nanoparticles, can increase the rate of a chemical reaction within hydrogen fuel cells, improving the process of turning hydrogen into energy. In solar cells, gold nanoparticles can convert solar energy into electricity more efficiently by increasing the absorption of sunlight.

While noble metals come with many benefits, they do pose a major problem – their desirable properties and rarity make them very expensive. Researchers at UMass Lowell have found a way to scale back the use of the precious metals while getting the same benefits in return. Their discovery was recently featured on the cover of “Chem,” a chemistry journal published by Cell Press.

“This gives our work more visibility and shows how we can be creative in nanoscience,” says Chemistry Asst. Prof. Michael Ross, who co-authored the paper featured in “Chem.”

In the lab, Ross and his research team investigated what would happen when they combined a noble metal nanoparticle with bismuth, a cheaper and more abundant post-transition metal. They discovered that the once smooth sides of the nanoparticle were now concave.

“These structures had properties that we haven’t seen before in nanoscience,” Ross says.

The concave shape gave the nanoparticle more surface area for chemical reactions to take place. It also made the nanoparticle more reactive because the atoms that make up the nanoparticle were bonded to fewer neighboring atoms.

“We found that making the nanoparticle concave was a much more effective way to use the same amount of noble metal atoms,” Ross says.

Fanglin Che, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, took the experimental data collected from Ross’ lab and used a computational approach to find applications for the discovery, which, along with renewable energy, included sensing and photonics because of the nanoparticle’s strong ability to absorb light.

“The computational approach gives guidance on what could work,” says Che, another co-author of the paper. “We can see how the concave surface reacts to various scenarios and offer that information to the experimental scientists for them to test.”

The researchers were funded by Office of Naval Research grants totaling more than $650,000. Che was also funded by an $875,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program.

In addition to Ross and Che, a postdoctoral scholar and graduate and undergraduate students in chemistry and chemical engineering worked on this research.

“People at all levels of training and experience came together to do this work,” Ross says. “They bring really different and valuable perspectives.”