by Citation News Editor
15. September 2011
In what may result in an inexpensive, zero-emissions fuel-production source for heating homes and powering cars, a semiconductor material has demonstrated the ability to generate hydrogen when submerged in water and exposed to sunlight, a process known as photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Researchers at the UK Center for Computational Sciences and the University of Louisville Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research have found that the electricity produced from an alloy of antimony and gallium nitride causes the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen to break, allowing the hydrogen to be collected. Hydrogen, a component in many renewable energy resources, can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, burned to produce heat, and used in internal combustion engines to run vehicles. During combustion, the hydrogen again combines with oxygen to form water vapor as a waste product.
