CHENNAI: A new material to effectively split water into hydrogen and oxygen using solar power has been developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras (IIT-M).
The research is expected to create a renewed interest in the low-cost production of Hydrogen, a clean fuel, from sea water.
The material used for splitting water using sunlight should be photovoltaic and at the same time remain stable in water. ‘Halide perovskite’ (Cs2PtI6), the material developed by the researchers, satisfies both the criteria, said a statement from the IIT-M.
“Ideally, splitting the seawater using photoelectric cell to generate clean hydrogen should be a serious research, if India ought to remain committed to green energy and avoid potential consequences of continued carbon emission. In our recent work, we attempted to make the first successful demonstration of splitting water using the best photovoltaic material,” said Aravind Kumar Chandiran, leading the Solar Energy Research Group at IIT-M.
This research paper has been published in the reputed peer-reviewed chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
It was co-authored by research scholar Muhammed Hamdan. The conversion of solar energy into electricity and its storage at a very low cost is an integral part of renewable energy researches, to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels and reduce anthropogenic green house gases.
The material ‘halide perovskite’ completely absorbs the entire visible light and remains extremely stable, the statement added. It is also found to be stable in strong acids and bases.