HighT-Tech, Md., has won The Spinoff Prize 2021 for developing a technique to make alloys that could improve catalysts or be used to build better batteries. The method enables the startup to fine-tune the catalytic activity of the materials and discover new and potentially more efficient catalysts.
The company’s process is based on research by Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park and co-founder of the company. It starts with carbon nanofibers to which the dissolved salts of many metals are added as chlorides. The researchers send a jolt of current through the conductive nanofibers. Because everything is so thin, and the metal is in direct contact with the carbon, the entire mixture heats up rapidly — to about 2,000 kelvins in 55 milliseconds. This method, called carbothermal shock, mixes the metals in the coating together. When the current is turned off, the thinness of the material means it cools as rapidly as it heats up — a process that does not give the metals time to separate (see ‘Thermal-shock synthesis’). In addition to improving catalytic properties and reducing the quantities of precious metals required, the process might also lower costs by more efficiently using the energy that goes into heating the materials, Gatte says.
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