Form of Third Amendment to the Sponsored Research Agreement

Exhibit 10.1

SPONSORED RESEARCH AGREEMENT 20212174

THIRD AMENDMENT

This Third Amendment to this Agreement is entered into as of the date of last signature below, by and between The Regents of the University of California, on Behalf of its Los Angeles Campus, having an address at 10889 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 920 Los Angeles, CA 90095-7191 (“University”), and NewHydrogen, Inc., having an address at 27936 Lost Canyon Road, Suite 202, Santa Clarita, CA 91387 (“Sponsor”).

WHEREAS, University and Sponsor entered into a Sponsored Research Agreement on December 14, 2020 and previously amended on March 1, 2021 and June 16, 2021 (“Agreement”);

WHEREAS, University and Sponsor wish to amend the Agreement as set forth below (“THIRD Amendment”);

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the mutual covenants and agreements contained herein, University and Sponsor agree as follows:

All other terms and conditions shall remain in full force and effect.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have executed this Third Amendment by their duly authorized representatives for good and valuable consideration.

Exhibit A-3

Supplemental Statement of Work

Development of Efficient and Stable Hydrogen Production via PEM and AEM Electrolyzer

Yu Huang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA

	Figure 1. Road map of hydrogen production from near term to long term and the estimated plant capacity for reach type of the production suggested by DOE. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrogen/production-of-hydrogen.

Global CO₂ emissions from the consumption of fossil oil have increased dramatically from 22,188.5 million tons in 1995 to 33,508.4 million tons in 2015, with an annual average rate of 2.1%.¹ In current global energy consumption, fossil fuel-based energies still provide approximately 86.0% of the global total energy needs.^1,2 To solve this problem, hydrogen, an attractive energy carrier with high energy density (140 MJ/kg) which is more than two times higher than typical solid fuels (50 MJ/kg), has been recognized as a promising alternative to replace fossil oil used in the industry and transportation.³ In addition, hydrogen has versatile significant applications in the traditional industry such as petroleum refinement, ammonia fertilizer, metal refinement, and heating.⁴ Demand for hydrogen in the United States is projected to grow from 60 million to nearly 700 million metric tons from now to the mid-century, even without considering the rapid development of fuel cell electric vehicles.⁴ The Hydrogen Council has made a comprehensive assessment of the future potential impact of the hydrogen economy. In the report, hydrogen energy is believed to be able to meet 18% of the world’s energy demand, create a $2.5 trillion market, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40–60% in transportation, industry, and residential.⁵ Although hydrogen is a renewable “carbon-zero” fuel, 96% of the current hydrogen is produced from the steam reforming of nonrenewable fossil fuels (methane, coal, and oil) with high energy consumption and CO₂ emission.⁶ Moreover, due to the nature of the steam reforming reaction, impurities such as CO or H₂S are inevitable in the produced H₂. Trace amounts of such impurities can severely poison the platinum (Pt) based catalysts currently used in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs).^7,8 Therefore, combined with renewable energy, electrochemical and photoelectrochemical hydrogen production has attracted considerable interest worldwide as the alternative, environmentally friendly long-term pathway to produce high purity H₂ on a large scale, as suggested by the Department of Energy (DOE) in the United States (Figure 1).

Currently, there are two main technologies for commercial electrochemical hydrogen production, the alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE), and the proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE). The PEMWE, which always features a membrane with high proton conductivity as the electrolyte and the noble metal as the catalysts, exhibit higher water splitting efficiency (2000 mA/cm² under 2.1 V) compared with that of AWE (400 mA/cm² under 1.85-2.2 V).⁹ On the other hand, non-precious metal based OER catalyst (Ni, Fe, Co, etc. and single-atom Ni-NC catalysts), can deliver comparable performance to the precious metal catalysts in the alkaline condition, while HER becomes more limiting.^10,11 Meanwhile, the low-cost and durable anion exchange membrane (AEM) technique is being rapidly developed to commensurate the advantages of catalyst cost in alkaline conditions.^12,13

For the anode side of the PEMWE, the most well-accepted catalyst is Ir-based materials. The high oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity and acceptable durability in acidic conditions at high current density make Ir-based materials nearly the only choice for anode catalysts. Substantial studies have been done on Ir-based material catalyzed OER, including metallic iridium¹⁴, iridium oxides¹⁵, iridium alloys¹⁶, and iridium-doped single atom catalysts¹⁷. Nevertheless, current Ir-based materials still suffer from limited activity and poor long-time durability¹⁵. Moreover, At an industrially-practical level, the iridium demand is evaluated as a potential bottleneck for large-scale PEM water electrolysis¹⁸. According to Fig. 1, at innovation scenarios (0.05 g_Ir kW^-1_, 2035 target), the cumulative iridium demand can be greatly reduced from around 80 tons to around 20 tons by 2070 compared to conservative scenarios (0.33 g_Ir kW^-1_, 2020 target). However, the current operating cost is 0.67 g_Ir kW^-1 by 2020^19-20. Reducing or replacing the iridium loading (i.e., improving the OER mass activity of iridium) for hydrogen production is one of the most significant goals of water electrolysis study.

The typical synthetic route developed by our lab mainly features a one-pot hydrothermal and post-annealing method, which is naturally feasible for large-scale catalyst production. The potential problem during the scaling-up is controlling the homogeneity of the catalyst, i.e., when the reactant amount increase, the diffusion issue is stressed, and the local concentration and temperature of the reactant can change. Upgrading the reactor vessel with a stirrer and precise temperature control is an ideal way to solve the problem. In the funding period, we will scaling the non-Ir based CoNi₂O₄ based catalysts and the Pt-NiOH catalysts system and test their performance in PEMWE and alkaline WE conditions.

	Figure 2. Results of scenario analysis. Annual and cumulative iridium demand for PEMWE and resulting iridium demand from external sources when considering the use of available closed-loop recycling material: (a) conservative scenarios with iridium catalyst loading of 0.33 g kW−1; (b) innovative scenarios with initial iridium catalyst loading of 0.33 g kW−1 reduced to 0.05 g kW−1 by 2035. Adapted from ref 5.

Fig. 3a shows a typical single-cell PEMEC, which consists of 1) plate, 2) flow channels, 3) liquid/gas diffusion layers (LGDL), 4) catalyst layers (CL), and 5) the PEM.²² This is very similar to the PEMFC but with reverse gas/liquid transport direction and hence has different requirements in designing the cell. During the operation, the ultrapure water is fed into the flow channel at the anode, transports across the porous LGDL, and electrochemically split into oxygen and hydrogen at the CL. The generated gas then diffuses out through the LGDL. Because of the complexity of electrode structures and material properties, the liquid water transport in the LGDL is one of the most challenging issues in PEMECs and plays an important role in cell optimization and design. In particular, the performance and efficiency of a PEMEC are tightly related to the porosity, contact angle, and thickness of the gas-liquid two-phase diffusion layers.^22,23

Porosity is defined as the ratio of the total volume of pores to the total volume of the LGDL. A higher porosity allows more efficient mass transport of both liquid and gas to deliver higher cell performance (Fig. 3b). Besides the total pore volume ratio, the size distribution, and spatial distribution of pores are critical for mass transport. Porous nanostructures with aligned mass transport channels have higher mass transport efficiency. Our lab has previously studied the fabrication of graphene-based 3D mesoporous structures with great performance in Lithium batteries due to high charge transfer and mass transfer properties.²⁴ The same technique could be implanted to replace the current commercial LGDL to develop high-porosity LGDL. A systematical investigation of porosity will be conducted with the 3D graphene hydrogel.

	Figure 3. a) Three-dimensional geometry schematic of a typical single cell PEMEC. Performance of PEMEC with different LGDL b) porosity; c) contact angle and d) thickness. Adapted from Ref 22.

Contact angle represents the hydrophilicity of LGDL and significantly impacts the liquid water transport and gas bubble transport inside the LGDL. In general, LGDL with a lower contact angle has a higher affinity to water and lower affinity to gas, leading to faster water flood to the catalyst layer, and gas bubbles emit into the flow channel (Fig. 3c).^22,25,26 Therefore, the LGDL has to consist of hydrophilic materials instead of hydrophobic materials. This is highly different from the PEMFC where the hydrophobic LGDL is preferred to drive gas in and water out. Current LDGL is more based on mesoporous carbon paper and thus always has a high contact angle. Alternative materials have to be considered to replace the current carbon fiber weaved LGDL.

One proposed method is to use partly oxidized or sulfonated carbon nanotube and graphene to tailor the surface hydrophilicity. An alternative method could be using porous SiO₂ nanoparticles to modify the carbon paper surface.

The thickness of LGDL controls the diffusion length and the ohmic resistance. In principle, the small thickness of LGDL significantly decreases the resistance and enhances the mass transport rate at the high current level (Fig 3d). Therefore, the optimized thickness of LGDL has to be controlled.

The PEM has been well commercialized and the Nafion series membrane has outstanding conductivity, stability, and mechanical strength among all the commercialized membranes. PEM’s thickness controls the proton transfer and prevents the gas crossover. Therefore, an optimized thickness has to be achieved. Although thickness below 25 mm significantly decreases the charge transfer resistance on the other hand increases the possibility for H₂/O₂ crossover, especially under high operating temperature and pressure. Compared with the PEM, the AEM is still under lab-scale R&D due to its instability. The most well-known AEM consists of quaternary ammonium ion-exchange-group-containing polymers, which will undergo rapid degradation under the concentrated alkaline electrolyte due to the irreversible Hofmann elimination.²⁷ Moreover, the current AEM also suffers from low conductivity and mechanical strength.

Preventing the degradation of the anode catalyst layer is a highly challenging part of assembling a stable PEMEC. Typically, carbon-based substrates on the anodic catalysts layer will undergo severe dissolution under high operating current and potential. To avoid using expensive metals such as Au and Ti as the protecting layer, the one hand, we are looking for conductive but anti-oxidative materials such as graphene and MoS₂. On the other hand, with catalysts development and advanced cell design, we can achieve the target current density (2 mA/cm² below 1.7 V) then the oxidative degradation effect will be minimized.

References

Exhibit B-3

Supplemental Payment Schedule

The additional funding provided by this Third Amendment shall be paid as follows:

*The January 1, 2023 invoice shall also include $98,846 which was funded under the Second Amendment. The total invoice for January 1, 2023 shall be $398,846.