(PRESS RELEASE) World’s First Development and Demonstration of Efficient Search Method for Unconventional Proton Conductors

2023/09/14

The research group consisting of Yuta Shimizu, Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Junji Hyodo, and Professor Yoshihiro Yamazaki (Kyushu University’s Platform for Inter-/Transdisciplinary Energy Research (Q-PIT), Inamori Frontier Research Center and Master’s Program in Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering) in collaboration with Assistant Professor Susumu Fujii (Department of Materials Production Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University), and Chief Researcher Akihide Kuwahara (Nanostructures Research Laboratory, Japan Fine Ceramics Center), have developed a design guidelines for proton-conductive oxides using computation and data science, and have successfully synthesized several unconventional proton-conductive oxides in just one experiment. This material design guideline is expected to significantly advance the development of proton-conducting oxides and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that utilize them. In addition, applying the established search method to other materials is expected to accelerate the development of innovative materials in various fields.

Research result

Through the use of advanced materials science simulations and machine learning models, the research team has identified suitable combinations of base compounds and dopants to develop guidelines for introducing protons into materials. Using the developed guidelines, the team successfully synthesized Pb-doped Bi₁₂SiO₂₀ and Sr-doped Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂ in a single attempt, and both were found to be new proton-conducting oxides (as shown in figure above). The former is particularly noteworthy as it's the first proton-conducting oxide in the world to have a sillenite structure and only consist of solely the group 14 and 15 cations. This is a significant breakthrough in the quest for searching better proton conductors.

The full version of the press release is available on the website of Kyushu University and can be found here (in Japanese).

Research paper information

Journal: Advanced Energy Materials, 2301892, 2023
Title: Discovery of Unconventional Proton-Conducting Inorganic Solids via Defect-Chemistry-Trained, Interpretable Machine Learning
Authors: Susumu Fujii, Yuta Shimizu, Junji Hyodo, Akihide Kuwabara*, and Yoshihiro Yamazaki*
DOI：10.1002/aenm.202301892

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