Integrative Graduate
Education and
Research Traineeship

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Mesoporous Material Transforms Solar Energy Into Fuel

New materials interact with light to generate hydrogen from water

Link:

Mesoporous Material Transforms Solar Energy Into Fuel

Projects:

Nanostructured Solar Cells: Materials, Processes and...

Institution:

University of South Dakota

Primary Strategic Goal:

Discovery: Foster research that will advance the frontiers of knowledge, emphasizing areas of greatest opportunity and potential benefit and establishing the Nation as a global leader in fundamental transformational science and engineering.

Achievement/Results

A research team in South Dakota has developed a method to rapidly create a novel material that generates hydrogen in the presence of water and sunlight. Because the hydrogen generation occurs at room temperature, the process will easily scale up to large production volumes. Applications of the new material range from removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the mitigation of environmental pollution.

Address Goals

This research expands our understanding of how to generate fuel using visible sunlight rather than ultraviolet light.