Daylight robbery

Two teams of researchers at

have brought the hydrogen revolution a step closer. One has found a way to generate a potentially unlimited source of hydrogen for fuel cells using only daylight. The other has developed a method of storing hydrogen at a high weight in a hydride that beats previous attempts to release the fuel at low temperatures.

Clean hydrogen generation is a key stumbling block for the realisation of the hydrogen economy and fuel cell use. Reforming fossil fuels can generate hydrogen, but the process produces greenhouse gas carbon as a by-product. Cleaner electrolysis methods can split water into hydrogen and oxygen and be powered by renewable energy, but power sources like solar cells are too expensive and need to improve their efficiency to generate enough electricity to force the reaction.

The Oxford University team placed transition metal nanoparticles inside a microporous oxide material that caused water to split into hydrogen and oxygen in ordinary daylight, without the need for an external electricity source like solar cells to drive the reaction.