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Water split breakthrough

27 August 2008

Gerry Swiegers, Robin Brimblecombe, Leone Spiccia and Annette Koo
Gerry Swiegers, Robin Brimblecombe, Leone Spiccia and Annette Koo.

An international team of researchers led by Monash University has used chemicals found in plants to replicate a key process in photosynthesis paving the way for a new approach that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The breakthrough could revolutionise the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen -- touted as the clean, green fuel of the future -- cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale.

Professor Leone Spiccia, Mr Robin Brimblecombe and Dr Annette Koo from Monash University teamed with Dr Gerhard Swiegers at the CSIRO and Professor Charles Dismukes at Princeton University to develop a coating that can be impregnated with a form of manganese, a chemical essential to sustaining photosynthesis in plant life.

"We have copied nature, taking the elements and mechanisms found in plant life and recreated one of those processes in the laboratory," Professor Spiccia said.

"A manganese cluster is central to a plant’s ability to use water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to make carbohydrates and oxygen."

"Man-made mimics of this cluster were developed by Professor Charles Dismukes some time ago, and we’ve taken it a step further, harnessing the ability of these molecules to convert water into its component elements, oxygen and hydrogen," Professor Spiccia said.

This process of "oxidizing" water generates protons and electrons, which can be converted into hydrogen gas instead of carbohydrates as in plants.

"Whilst man has been able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for years, we have been able to do the same thing for the first time using just sunlight, an electrical potential of 1.2 volts and the very chemical that nature has selected for this purpose," Professor Spiccia said.

Professor Spiccia said the efficiency of the system needed to be improved, but the breakthrough had huge potential. "We need to continue to learn from nature so that we can better master this process," Professor Spiccia said.

"Hydrogen has long been considered the ideal clean green fuel, energy-rich and carbon-neutral. The production of hydrogen using nothing but water and sunlight offers the possibility of an abundant, renewable, green source of energy for the future for communities across the world."

For more information see Monash University Newsline.