New 5,432°F-method can boost hydrogen production efficiency by 6-fold

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a groundbreaking ultrahigh temperature method that can increase hydrogen production efficiency by six times while drastically reducing energy consumption. This novel technique uses a 0.02-second flash of light to rapidly generate temperatures of 5,432°F (3,000°C), enabling the ultrafast synthesis and functionalization of carbon nanoonions (CNOs) from chemically inert nanodiamond precursors. The process, called direct-contact photothermal annealing, achieves this temperature in under 0.02 seconds and reduces energy use by more than a thousandfold compared to conventional catalyst synthesis methods. A key innovation of this method is its ability to simultaneously restructure the CNO support material and embed single-atom catalysts (SACs) of eight different metals in a single step, significantly simplifying and accelerating catalyst production. The resulting SAC-functionalized CNOs exhibit exceptional catalytic performance, particularly demonstrated by platinum SACs in hydrogen evolution reactions