Using Solar Energy to Generate Hydrogen<

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Using Solar Energy to Generate Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and powers our greatest energy production source, familiar to all of us - the SUN. Hydrogen itself makes up 75% of the universes elemental mass, obviously not all of it is on earth.

But how can we use hydrogen as a fuel. Hydrogen, like fossil fuels is an explosive gas. When it combines in an explosive reaction with oxygen it produces only one element - WATER. In other words there are no toxic outputs.

It is not all rosy though for our friend Mr Hydrogen, since there are cost and efficiency factors involved in making hydrogen fuel a reality. There are a number of possibilities, such as producing hydrogen from bio-products like manure and waste material, producing hydrogen from water and others.

Some researchers in Australia are looking at a radical new way of using a catalyst (a substance that encourages a chemical reaction by its own properties) - titanium dioxide - to assist hydrogen and oxygen from separating within water to produce pure hydrogen gas. This hydrogen is then used to power fuel cells and make electricity.

The initial power source is our old friend Mr Sun. Simply it works like this. The sun power and the catalyst split the water H20, into hydrogen and oxygen, so we now have H2 plus 02. This hydrogen is then used to power a fuel cell, which produces electricity.

The advantage of the catalyst is that it requires much less solar energy to bring this about, making the whole reaction more cost effective.

This is only one method that is being explored at the moment, but it is a step towards exploring the factors involved in producing hydrogen efficiently for our global well being.

By Graeme Sprigge