A cheaper way to extract hydrogen fuel from water
SEP 02, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024639
New Scientist : Several groups of researchers have been working toward deriving energy from sunlight and waterâmdash;much as plants do. A team at MIT found a revolutionary way to split a water molecule into oxygen gas and hydrogen ions, which required far less electricity than conventional electrolysis, by using a cheap cobaltâphosphate catalyst and titanium oxide electrodes. Another team, from the University of Washington in Seattle, used MIT’s photovoltaic technology to develop a more-energy-efficient photoelectrochemical electrode—although it cannot as yet generate enough power to run on its own. Both methods generate only hydrogen ions, which still need to be turned into hydrogen gas. Some of their results have been published in Energy and Environmental Science .
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
