The company used machine learning to suggest new compositions to try, which were then created and deposited alongside other new material compositions on a chip.

Mattiq approached the problem of iridium scarcity by seeking materials that fulfilled three criteria: They had to react as well as or better than iridium, be as durable or better, and be more abundant. “If you think about the periodic table, with over a hundred unique elements, you can mix them in so many different ways,” Ivankin says, especially when considering variables like material size and structure. Being able to test a vast number of materials concurrently is an important aspect of successful materials discovery, as there are a near limitless number of compositions to try when creating a new material, Ivankin says. Mattiq’s discovery process uses microchips built using nanotechnology to test a large number of potential new materials all at once each chip can contain 10,000 nanoscale reactors that each hold materials of different compositions. The company tackled the challenge of finding a suitable iridium replacement for PEM electrolysis as a proof of concept for its high-throughput materials discovery platform. Mattiq is a startup from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., specializing in materials discovery for sustainable technologies. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the demand capacity for hydrogen electrolyzers will reach 100 gigawatts by 2030, but the current annual production of iridium can support only up to 7.5 GW of capacity. Small amounts are also retrieved as a by-product of mining other metals. It is found in platinum ores but is one-tenth as abundant as the platinum in those ores. Iridium’s biggest downsides are its scarcity and difficulty to obtain only 7,000 kilograms are produced each year. Iridium works well as a catalyst because it hits the reactiveness sweet spot-it’s active enough to spur the electrolysis reaction, but not so active it would quickly degrade in the acidic environment of PEM electrolyzers, says Andrey Ivankin, Mattiq’s chief technology officer. “If you think about the periodic table, with over a hundred unique elements, you can mix them in so many different ways.” -Andrey Ivankin, MattiqĬurrently, PEM electrolysis is reliant on iridium to catalyze the reaction that generates oxygen from water, a key part of electrolysis. The company’s method of testing these new materials is significantly faster than those of traditional lab experiments, and could pave the way to finding a more accessible replacement for iridium in PEM electrolyzers, thus making adoption more widespread. Recently, the materials science startup Mattiq synthesized hundreds of possible replacements for iridium. Governments and organizations like the International Renewable Energy Agency are pushing for initiatives to make hydrogen more mainstream, but PEM electrolysis depends on the rare and expensive catalyst iridium, which has been a bottleneck for the tech’s adoption.

One of the most common existing technologies for electrolysis-the process of generating hydrogen gas from water using electricity-is proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis. Hydrogen gas generated using renewable energy is a promising source of clean fuel.

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