Hydrogen research news

Stealing nature's photosynthetic secrets - November 12, 2012

The prospect of creating clean, renewable hydrogen fuel is closer than ever after a breakthrough in our understanding of photosynthesis. Professors Rob Stranger and Ron Pace from the Research School of Chemistry in the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences used computer modelling to reveal the molecular structure of the photosynthesis reaction site in plants. This is where sunlight is used to convert water into its components -- hydrogen and oxygen.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-nature-photosynthetic-secrets.html#jCp

Research reveals nanotechnology simplifies hydrogen production for clean energy - November 21, 2012

Researchers are producing hydrogen from water using light and novel nanomaterials.

In the first-ever experiment of its kind, researchers have demonstrated that clean energy hydrogen can be produced from water splitting by using very small metal particles that are exposed to sunlight. In the article, "Outstanding activity of sub-nm Au clusters for photocatalytic hydrogen production," published in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Alexander Orlov, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at Stony Brook University, and his colleagues from Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory, found that the use of gold particles smaller than one nanometer resulted in greater hydrogen production than other co-catalysts tested.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-reveals-nanotechnology-hydrogen-production-energy.html#jCp