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HyperSolar Announces Breakthrough Catalyst Needed for Splitting Water to Produce Low Cost, Renewable Hydrogen
HyperSolar Announces Breakthrough Catalyst Needed for Splitting Water to Produce Low Cost, Renewable Hydrogen.
About this update from Sunhydrogen Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"\nSANTA BARBARA, Calif., May 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HyperSolar, Inc. (OTCQB:HYSR), the developer of a breakthrough technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and any source of water, today announced the successful development of an efficient and low-cost catalyst for oxygen production – an important half reaction of water-splitting for hydrogen production.\nThe amount of hydrogen produced by water splitting is fundamentally limited by the slower oxygen half reaction.  Developing an efficient oxygen catalyst is an important milestone in the Company’s effort to split water molecules for the production of renewable hydrogen. The Company believes that a commercially viable oxygen catalyst needs to satisfy five important characteristics when integrated on the surface of a solar cell for water-splitting: 1) Highly transparent to maximize sunlight reaching the solar cell; 2) Stable over a long time; 3) Efficient; 4) Uses inexpensive materials, and 5) Deposited under ambient temperature and pressure using environmentally benign conditions. Currently a catalyst that addresses all five characteristics does not exist. Currently best performing oxygen catalysts are mostly made of rare earth elements such as iridium and ruthenium. There has been numerous research focused on developing highly efficient oxygen catalysts using earth abundant materials, however development of a catalyst satisfying all of the above characteristics has remained elusive.HyperSolar in partnership with The University of Iowa has recently made some significant breakthroughs toward perfecting such a catalyst:Developed an efficient and stable oxygen catalyst using inexpensive earth abundant elements.Developed an extremely low cost ambient process to deposit an ultrathin layer (less than 10 nanometers) of the catalyst on the surface of a solar cell. The deposition process is highly scalable and rapid (takes less than 10 seconds) enabling deposition on large area solar panels for commercial production.Due to the ultrathin nature of the film, the entire catalyst layer is 86% transparent to visible sunlight.Demonstrated stable and efficient operation for more than 48 hours under aggressive operating conditions.  The efficiency is roughly estimated to be 75% of the efficiency of iridium. Currently the team is furth...