MIT AI Hardware Program

Team Engineers Nanoparticles Using Ion Irradiation to Advance Clean Energy and Fuel Conversion

Elizabeth Thomson | Materials Research Laboratory

Combining the techniques, metal exsolution and ion irradiation, demonstrates control over key nanoparticle properties leading to better performance.

Artist’s concept of four domes comprised of spheres representing nanoparticles. Three of the domes have different colored particle beams shining down on them.

November 27, 2023

MIT researchers and colleagues have demonstrated a way to precisely control the size, composition, and other properties of nanoparticles key to the reactions involved in a variety of clean energy and environmental technologies. They did so by leveraging ion irradiation, a technique in which beams of charged particles bombard a material.

They went on to show that nanoparticles created this way have superior performance over their conventionally made counterparts.

“The materials we have worked on could advance several technologies, from fuel cells to generate CO2-free electricity to the production of clean hydrogen feedstocks for the chemical industry [through electrolysis cells],” says Bilge Yildiz, leader of the work and a professor in MIT’s departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

Complete article from MIT News.

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