A team at the University of California have discovered a new catalyst that could overcome expensive water-splitting issues to create low-cost hydrogen fuel.
The molybdenum-based catalyst appears to overcome the biggest challenge of creating hydrogen fuel - working in water. Currently, Platinum or microbial hydorgenasesbased on nickel and iron are the main catalysts used to generate hydrogen gas at a speed or without the use of other additives. However, both options are too expensive for commercial mass production.
Although not yet at production stage, as it requires too much energy to generate hydrogen, the new catalyst appears to have all the right ingredients for further development. It is cheap to produce, works in pure and sea water and does not require the use of additional additives.
As with many scientific breakthroughs, the discovery came as the UC Berkeley team were experimenting for very different purposes. The molybdenum catalyst was a suprising, but possibly revolutionary spin-off from the work which has led the team to focus on its development.