Tech sector carbon emissions continued their rise in recent years, fueled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and data infrastructure, according to the ITU-WBA Greening Digital Companies 2025 report.

Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that the research team of Professors Jeyong Yoon and Jaeyune Ryu from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Jang Yong Lee’s team from Konkuk University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has developed a new water electrolysis operation strategy that can produce green hydrogen without complex catalyst manufacturing processes.

The research team presented the possibility of significantly increasing hydrogen production efficiency without the use of precious metal-based catalysts. As a result, this research outcome is expected to be a technological turning point that accelerates the realization of a carbon-neutral society.

These findings were published on May 23th in the world-renowned journal Nature Communications under the title “Dynamic polarization control of Ni electrodes for sustainable and scalable water electrolysis under alkaline conditions.”