New research reveals how hydrogen economy could be achieved through a new catalyst system.

Hydrogen could make an ideal fuel and even be used to store energy, but most current processes require expensive noble metals, such as platinum, the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported. The groundbreaking new research could help get around some of these roadblocks.

"In the hydrogen evolution reaction, the whole game is coming up with inexpensive alternatives to platinum and the other noble metals," said Song Jin, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The researchers created a hydrogen-making catalyst containing the common elements phosphorus and sulfur, and the ultra-cheap cobalt. The new catalyst is 1,000 times cheaper and almost as efficient as platinum-based systems, and can use sunlight to spit water directly.

"We have demonstrated a proof-of-concept device for using this cobalt catalyst and solar energy to drive hydrogen generation, which also has the best reported efficiency for systems that rely only on inexpensive catalysts and materials to convert directly from sunlight to hydrogen," Jin said.

The catalyst has only been tested in the lab so far, and its cost must be compared to that of the entire system.

"One needs to consider the cost of the catalyst compared to the whole system. There's always a tradeoff: If you want to build the best electrolyzer, you still want to use platinum. If you are able to sacrifice a bit of performance and are more concerned about the cost and scalability, you may use this new cobalt catalyst," Jin said.

The researchers also noted that strategies to replace the majority of fossil fuel burning with renewable solar energy must be completed quickly and on a large scale in order to help ease the climate crisis.

"If you want to make a dent in the global warming problem, you have to think big. Whether we imagine making hydrogen from electricity, or directly from sunlight, we need square miles of devices to evolve that much hydrogen. And there might not be enough platinum to do that," Jin concluded.

The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Nature Materials.