New Electrochemical Method Splits Water With Electricity To Produce Hydrogen Fuel — And Cuts Energy Costs In The Process

Scientists adapted a method that can produce double the amount of hydrogen when splitting water molecules with electricity.

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Scientists have developed a new technique that doubles the amount of hydrogen produced when splitting water molecules with electricity. The method works by adding a simple organic molecule and a modified catalyst to the reactor.

The adapted method lowers energy costs by up to 40% and may offer a promising pathway for efficient and scalable hydrogen production, the researchers said in a new study published Dec. 1 in the Chemical Engineering Journal.

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“Hydrogen is one of the most in demand chemicals,” study co-author Hamed Heidarpour, a doctoral student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, told Live Science. Hydrogen is used for ammonia production to produce fertilizers, in fuel cells to generate electrical energy, or burned to directly produce energy, Heidarpour said.

The main way of producing hydrogen is through steam reforming, which involves reacting water with natural gas at high temperatures and pressures to separate water's oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But these conditions mean the process is energy intensive and requires burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

Using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules — a method known as electrolysis — could potentially offer a way to create hydrogen with no direct carbon dioxide emissions.

This works by connecting two metal plates known as electrodes to a direct current supply and submerging the ends of the plates into water. Applying electricity to the circuit generates hydrogen at the negative electrode (anode) and oxygen at the positive one (cathode).

However, electrolysis of water is currently inefficient, expensive and uses a lot of electricity, which often comes from non-renewable sources. The main inefficiency is from producing oxygen at the anode, Heidarpour explained.