NUS Catalyst Regeneration Keeps Hydrogen Output Alive for 2,000 Hours

Two mechanisms do the work:

• Electron transfer from the Fe-NC support suppresses platinum oxidation and speeds up dehydrogenation — the slowest, rate-determining step of the reaction.
• Fe-N₄ sites promote water dissociation, which drives hydrogenation of the poisoning nitrogen species on platinum into reactive NH-containing intermediates. This unblocks active sites and restores catalytic activity.

The collaboration included Assistant Professor Ou Pengfei of the NUS Department of Chemistry and Professor Fan Lei from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Under the tested conditions, Pt/Fe-NC showed more than ten times the ammonia oxidation activity of a commercial platinum-on-carbon catalyst. It also performed strongly at hydrogen production, meaning a single catalyst handles both key reactions in the process.

Takeaway: the support material does not just hold the platinum — it actively repairs and accelerates it.

How did they keep it running for 2,000 hours?

A good catalyst alone was not enough. The researchers paired Pt/Fe-NC with a regeneration protocol: periodic reversal of the electrical current, occasional acid washing, and ammonia replenishment.

Together, these steps restore activity and hold hydrogen output steady over extended operation. The numbers:

• More than 2,000 hours of sustained hydrogen production at a low electrical current.
• 500 hours at a substantially higher current.

Both tests ran at 80°C.

Dr. Jiang Rui, a research fellow in the NUS Department of Chemistry and a member of the team, said: "Our water-assisted regeneration approach helps prevent nitrogen from blocking the platinum surface, allowing the catalyst to remain active for longer. This is an important step toward achieving more reliable and sustained hydrogen production from ammonia."

Takeaway: regeneration, not just catalyst design, delivered the durability.

What changes for practitioners?

For engineers working on decentralized hydrogen supply, the result suggests a route around two cost drivers at once: scarce platinum used inefficiently, and frequent catalyst replacement. Because ammonia infrastructure — storage tanks, shipping, handling — already exists at scale, a durable cracking catalyst moves distributed hydrogen production closer to economic reality.

Professor Chen also pointed beyond hydrogen supply: "These design principles may extend to other ammonia oxidation applications, including direct ammonia fuel cells."

The caveats are real. The 2,000-hour result is a laboratory measurement at controlled temperature and current, and the researchers state plainly that further work is needed to evaluate the technology at larger scales. Whether the regeneration protocol — current reversal plus acid washing — translates to industrial stacks remains untested.

Publication details: Rui Jiang et al., Catalyst regeneration enables durable electrochemical ammonia cracking for H2 production, Nature Synthesis (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s44160-026-01201-6.

For now, the design principle is the story: build a support that heals the catalyst, and pair it with a regeneration routine that keeps it honest.