New discovery on the Sun could change the world: It’s the end of hydrogen 

A collaboration by an international team of scientists has made a massive leap in technology with the development of a new way to generate hydrogen from water using solar power. The innovation in nano-scale chemistry is set to revolutionize the technology behind sustainable and efficient hydrogen generation and the potential for the fuel sector is significant.Green hydrogen production has been boosted with a novel nano-scale chemistry innovationExperts in nano-scale chemistry got together to work on generating renewable hydrogen using solar power, and the results have exciting potential in the drive toward sustainable fuel options. The collaborative study was led by Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia with team members from Germany, the United States, and Australia.The team has identified a new process involving solar cells that can be applied to the technology for the photocatalytic splitting of water to produce green hydrogen. A catalyst developed during research in the United States led by Professor Paul Maggard was applied to water molecule splitting. The results showed that the new class of kinetically stable core and shell Sn(II)-perovskite oxide solar material could function as a catalyst for the required critical oxygen evolution reaction in producing pollution-free hydrogen energy in the future.Another innovation in a different area of solar energy development is renewable energy company First Solar’s bifacial solar panel with a cadmium telluride (CdTe) semiconductor, which it describes as being the first in the world.New avenues are open in producing hydrogen using affordable electrolysisThe results of the groundbreaking study were published in peer-reviewed The Journal of Physical Chemistry C and set out a strategy to develop carbon-free environmental hydrogen technology involving the application of non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power sources to high-performing, affordable electrolysis.Lead author Professor Gunther Andersson from the Flinders Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at the College of Science and Engineering summarized the findings:“This latest study is an important step forwards in understanding how these tin compounds can be stabilised and effective in water.”Professor Paul Maggard from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Baylor University, who worked on the catalyst for the study, explained:“Our reported material points to a novel chemical strategy for absorbing the broad energy range of sunlight and using it to drive fuel-producing reactions at its surfaces.”How does the new technology facilitate effective and efficient green hydrogen production?The shell Sn(II)-perovskite oxide solar material that functions as a catalyst for the reaction to produce hydrogen uses tin and oxygen compounds that are already used in numerous applications, such as catalysis, diagnostic imaging, and therapeutic medication. However, Sn(II) compounds are limited in their technological applications beca