Griffith University is taking one giant leap into the future of clean energy. According to EurekaAlert, the university is using carbon as a method of delivering energy using hydrogen. The specific team is Griffith's Queensland Micro and Nanotechnology Centre. They have produced hydrogen from water. This would replace platinum as an electrocatalyst of producing hydrogen from water. The team is venturing to say that this is the first proof that power can be generated at a low cost and at no harm to the earth. The results come from the Nature Communications Journal .
The senior author of the work, Xiangdong Yao said: "Hydrogen production through an electrochemical process is at the heart of key renewable energy technologies including water splitting and hydrogen fuel cells."
Yao further admits hydrogen has always been a "great challenge" and platinum has been the most stable electrocatalyst for the purpose
Explaining how exactly they are achieving their results, Yao said: "In our research, we synthesize a nickel-carob-based-catalyst, from carbonization of metal-organic frameworks, to replace currently best-known-platinum-based materials for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution."
Hydrogen is already being used in cars as a fuel medium but recently energy storage has become a focus as well. Will hydrogen and clean energy be the logical step in an industry that is utilizing lithium-ion? If it is a more natural process of creating clean energy, it might become the next logical norm.
