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Australian researchers create ultrathin catalyst to split water for fuel

Xinhua, November 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

esearchers at Australia's Griffith University have reported the use of a new ultra-thin catalyst to split water into its two components, oxygen and hydrogen, to be converted and used as fuel.

The sheet-like, highly efficient catalysts boast long-term stability and help spur the process to create economically viable clean fuel, according to the latest research published in the Nature Energy journal.

Just as how sunlight generates electricity, the water-splitting process could do the same via the generation of clean chemical fuel such as hydrogen, online news portal Science Media Exchange quoted Professor Huijin Zhao, the director of Griffith's Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, as saying.

Hydrogen would be a promising clean fuel over petrol in the foreseeable future, Zhao said.

"Scientifically it's already demonstrated, it's already working but to do this in a way that's economically viable, there's still a bit of work to do and we need government policy, general public support, and you also need those big companies to realise they should not dig up out of the ground anymore," he said.

"It's not just a simple technology issue." Enditem