Christian D. Damsgaard, Thomas Pedersen and Ole Hansen,
Technical University of Denmark A scanning electron microscope
image of tiny silicon pillars, used to absorb light. When dotted
with the new catalyst and exposed to sunlight, these pillars
efficiently generate hydrogen gas from the hydrogen ions
liberated by splitting water. Each pillar is approximately two
micrometers in diameter. Scientists have found and tested an
abundant and inexpensive catalyst needed to make hydrogen fuel
from sunlight and water, a necessary step on the road to the
elusive clean, green hydrogen economy. The new catalyst —
molybdenum sulfide — is an alternative to platinum, an expensive
and rare catalyst used to convert single ions of hydrogen split
off from water into hydrogen gas. "That's the very neat thing
here, it is quite inexpensive and abundant," Jens Norskov, a
chemical engineer with the Department of Energy's SLAC National
Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, told me Monday.
The dream of a hydrogen economy stems