□ A Korean research team succeeded in unveiling how oxidation reaction differs by catalyst, the core principle of fuel cell of new renewable energy technology. With this finding, it is expected to contribute to enhance function of fuel cell by redesigning new catalyst system to make it more efficient.

❍ The research led by professor Mun, Bongjin(corresponding author), at the Department of Physics and Panton Science at GIST(Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, President   Young Joon Kim) and participated by Kim Young Soo, PhD at the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Seoul National University (first author), professor Han Seung Woo, at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Seoul National University (co-corresponding author) and Dr. Jeon Sang Ho at Samsung Display (co-author) has been conducted as an initiative under the general research sponsorship project led by National Research Foundation of Korea. The research findings have been covered by Advanced Energy Materials (Impact Factor : 10.043), a global academic journal in the field of physics and energy (The title of the paper : Role of Transition Metal in Fast Oxidation Reaction on the Pt3TM(111) (TM = Ni, Co) Surfaces)

□ Oxidation reaction indicates the process of environmentally friendly emission where oxygen, hydrogen and electron coming from the outside meet to become water and this is one of the key catalyst responses of fuel cell. Generally, white gold is used as catalyst materials for oxidation reaction but it is the challenge to enhance the responding speed even faster for white gold, known to be the best functioning catalyst. Also it can be commercialized only when the portion of expensive white gold is reduced as low as possible to make it practically affordable.

□ The research team adopted angle resolve photoemission spectroscopy on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell used for automobiles to assess and analyze the changes on surface electron structure on alloy of white gold-transition metal to define co-relation between the role of transition metal and oxidation reaction.