An electrode to split seawater molecules to get hydrogen has been made by researchers in China.
Splitting seawater molecules is difficult, but as it’s more abundant than freshwater, it is desirable to do so. The BiVO4 photoanode splits the water at much higher photocurrent densities than previous methods (2.16 mAcm-2 compared to 1.0 mAcm-2) and at a low potential.
Read this ‘HOT’ Energy & Environmental Science paper today:
Solar hydrogen generation from seawater with a modified BiVO4 photoanode
Z Li, et al, Energy Environ. Sci., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1ee01812d
