A Penn State University research group has announced it is only a few steps away from developing an inexpensive and easily scalable technique for water photoelectrolysis, a breakthrough that could help power the proposed hydrogen economy.
The technique involves splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using light energy and as an environmentally friendly approach would produce hydrogen from water using the renewable energy of sunlight.
Most current methods of hydrogen production split hydrogen from natural gas in a process that produces climate changing greenhouse gas while consuming a non-renewable resource. This discovery, which may now be ‘only a couple of problems away’, could provide a greener, more flexible avenue for hydrogen use.
Craig Grimes, professor of electrical engineering in the Materials Research Institute of Penn State University, led the research group behind the technology and commented, $quot;As I see it, we are a couple of problems away from having something that will revolutionise the field of hydrogen generation by use of solar energy.$quot;
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