When an LNO catalyst with a nickel-rich surface carries out a water-splitting reaction, its surface atoms rearrange from a cubic to a hexagonal pattern and its efficiency doubles. Deliberately engineering the surface to take advantage of this phenomenon offers a way to design better catalysts.

But that’s ok, they reported today, because understanding and controlling this surprising transformation gives them a new way to turn catalytic activity on and off and make good catalysts even better.

The research team, led by scientists from Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, described their study in Nature Materials today.

«Catalysts can change very quickly during the course of a reaction, and understanding how they transform from an inactive phase to an active one is crucial to designing more efficient catalysts,» said Will Chueh, an investigator with the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) at SLAC who led the study. «This transformation gives us the equivalent of a knob we can turn to fine-tune their behavior.»

Splitting water to make hydrogen fuel

Catalysts help molecules react without being consumed in the reaction, so they can be used over and over. They’re the backbone of many green-energy devices.

Story Source: Materials provided by DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Original written by Glennda Chui. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.