A very recent development comes from scientists at the Institute of Nano Science and Technology in India. They have created a novel quasi-2D tellurium nanosheet that could significantly improve the efficiency of electrolysers for green hydrogen production.
The key innovation is that this material exhibits an emergent ferromagnetic state. This allows the researchers to control both magnetism and catalytic activity within a single material, which is an unconventional approach. By using scalable liquid-phase exfoliation and strain engineering, they activated unpaired electron spins on the material’s surface, leading to this unique magnetic property. This capability is promising for lowering the energy required for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) , effectively linking multiferroic behavior and electrocatalysis.
