Cronin Group in Hydrogen Production Breakthrough
The production of hydrogen via the electrolysis of water is the subject of considerable research activity as, coupled with renewable sources of electricity, it can provide a route to “green” hydrogen but the high cost, the need for precious metals, and extra infrastructure to cope with fluctuating power supplies are all important problems that need to be solved. Writing in this week’s issue of Science, researchers in the Cronin group report on a new way to split water using a redox mediator that allows the one-step electrolysis of water with an electrical input, followed by the on demand release of hydrogen simply by adding a catalyst after the redox mediator has been reduced, and oxygen evolved. This process not only allows the amount of precious metals to be reduced, or the speed of hydrogen production to be increased, but also gives a new route to the temporal and spatial split of the water splitting reaction providing new fundamental insights and new potential electrolyser systems for hydrogen.
BBC News Story
Full paper in Science