One of the known green energy sources is the electrolysis of water to get hydrogen fed into fuel cell vehicles, but this is in exchange of expensive catalysts and higher energy demands to split water. With the current technology created by a group of researchers, they have figured out a new catalyst that is way cheaper than the usual and is eyed as a clean energy source in the future.

A research team from the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University (WSU) published their study on the journal Advanced Energy Materials regarding a breakthrough in splitting water for energy. Since the global thrust now is to resolve energy demands by seeking greener renewable energy sources, they have found a cheaper way to gather hydrogen from water using simple catalysts.

The WSU research team used inexpensive copper and cobalt-based framework, and to add the important spice, they included nanoparticles to their catalyst. Using their work, they found out that it has efficiently produced more oxygen and hydrogen compared with the typically used catalysts made up of expensive metals such as platinum and ruthenium.

But their exploration on making a catalyst did not end there. According to Scott Beckman, one of the professors leading the team, catalyst modeling was done to further adjust and improve their work and understand the possible outputs on the atomic level. The modeling eventually helped the group to be precise enough with their work, as mentioned in the Washington State University News.

"The research team has provided a new perspective in designing and improving non-precious metal-based catalysts for hydrogen production," said Professor Yuehe Lin, who also led the team with Beckman. "This catalyst will pave the way for the development of high-performance, electrolysis-based hydrogen production applications," he explained in ScienceDirect.