.....University of Central Flordia’s research team,.claim to have created a new substance that can extract hydrogen from seawater much more efficiently than current methods, potentially making hydrogen fuel cell technology a viable alternative to existing fossil fuels.
In a new paper published in Energy & Environmental Science, the new nanomaterial is said to be an ultrathin film of titanium dioxide with nanocavities etched into it. These cavities are then coated with flakes of molybdenum disulfide just an atom wide.
This new material acts as a solar catalyst, using the power of the sun’s light to turn the water in seawater into its constituent parts: hydrogen and oxygen.
According to Phys.org, Yang Yang, who headed up the the University of Central Flordia’s research team, said the university’s new method for hydrogen production is a breakthrough because “we’ve opened a new window to splitting real water, not just purified water in a lab”.
Additionally, the new nanomaterial makes better use of sunlight than current materials, as it is sensitive to everything in the spectrum between ultraviolet to infrared light......
