In our quest to obtain clean energy, every new discovery in energy production can significantly change not only our future, but the future of our planet. As we are desperately trying to replace fossil fuels with alternative sources of energy, there is one basic element that could power the industry of the future in an environmentally friendly way: hydrogen.

Inspired by an essential process in the life of plants, known as photosynthesis, MIT scientists Daniel Nocera and Matthew Kanan have developed a technique that allows the energy from the Sun to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can later be recombined in a fuel cell to create carbon-free electricity that can be used for powering houses and electric cars.

“This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said Daniel Nocera about the technique. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.” The study appears in the July 31 issue of the journal Science.

The problem with exploiting solar energy so far was that the costs for storing it were simply too high, thus limiting the use of solar energy to daytime only. However, the MIT specialists have announced that they found a simple, inexpensive way of storing solar energy for later use through a very efficient technique.

With the help of a system of catalysts, one consisting of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode for producing oxygen gas, and another one consisting of platinum for example, used for producing hydrogen, scientists were able to duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis in a neutral pH water.

This is not only a simple technique, but it is also easy to implement. “The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem,” said James Barber, Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College, London.

According to the MIT team of researchers, the electrolyzers available in the industry today are not only very expensive, but also incapable of reproducing artificial photosynthesis due to the fact that they require a highly basic environment to operate in, instead of a neutral one required for a successful photosynthesis.

The authors of the study expect that homeowners will be able to use photovoltaic cells to power their homes during daylight, and at the same time use excess solar energy to power their own household fuel cell, putting the wired system aside just 10 years from now.

Another study appearing in the same issue of the journal Science and developed by researchers at the Australian Centre for Electromaterials Science, shows how an air electrode based on a porous material coated with a special polymer acts like an oxygen reduction catalyst, with conversion rates comparable with those of platinum-catalyzed electrodes.

A third study written by scientists at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, highlights the role of ionic conductivity in reducing the operation temperature of solid oxide cells, which is now of 700 degrees C. Based on a zirconium-strontium-titanium mixture, the new material allows fuel cells to operate at 84 degrees C, thus breaking all previous limitations.