Making hydrogen

If you have read How the hydrogen economy works, you know that the idea of a hydrogen economy is popular because it would be much better for the environment. However, there are two problems that need to be solved: 1) how to efficiently produce hydrogen, and 2) How to efficiently store hydrogen.

One obvious way to make hydrogen is to use electricity to split water. The problem is that you have to make the electricity. If you use a coal-fired power plant, you are defeating the purpose. Many people don’t like nuclear. And solar panels are still pretty expensive.

What if you could skip the solar panels and go directly from sunlight to hydrogen? That is the idea discussed in this article:

Splitting Water with Sunlight

According to the article: “Hydrogen is one of the most important fuels of the future, and the sun will be one of our most important sources of energy. Why not combine the two to produce hydrogen directly from solar energy without any detours involving electrical current? Why not use a process similar to the photosynthesis used by plants to convert sunlight directly into chemical energy?”

Scientists are using titanium disilicide. With the help of sunlight, this semiconductor will catalytically split hydrogen and oxygen. Titanium disilicide has the advantage of being inexpensive.

We will see where this leads. For more info in the meantime see: How the hydrogen economy works

PS - another nice article here: Four energy technologies on the brink