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‘Endangered metals’ no longer needed to produce hydrogen

[Allman]

Looks like whichever way green transportation unfolds, cobalt will be a necessity ...

A new, rare metal-free method for producing hydrogen from water has been discovered by a team of researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan.
Instead of scarce materials, the scientists found a way to use cobalt and manganese to produce hydrogen for fuel cells and agricultural fertilizers. ...
“For industrial-scale hydrogen production, we needed to set our study’s target current density to about 10 to 100 times higher than what has been used in past experiments,” co-author Shuang Kong said. “The high currents led to a number of problems such as physical decomposition of the catalyst.”
Eventually, the team overcame these issues by trial and error and discovered an active and stable catalyst by inserting manganese into the spinel lattice of Co3O4, producing the mixed cobalt manganese oxide Co2MnO4. ...
“We have achieved what has eluded scientists for decades,” co-author Ailong Li said. “Hydrogen production using a highly active and stable catalyst made from abundant metals. In the long run, we believe that this is a huge step towards creating a sustainable hydrogen economy. 

https://www.mining.com/endangered-metals-not-needed-anymore-to-produce-hydrogen-from-water/