Low-cost catalyst innovation boosts green hydrogen production

Researchers from RMIT University in Victoria and collaborators in China have demonstrated a low-cost way to significantly increase green hydrogen production utilising upgraded titanium dioxide (TiO2), a material already widely used in energy technologies.

Green hydrogen is seen as a key tool for decarbonizing heavy industry, but the cost and efficiency of production remain major barriers. One promising approach to hydrogen production uses light to split water into hydrogen and oxygen but in practice, much of that energy is lost before it can do useful work.

Lead researcher Dr Derek Hao, from RMIT’s School of Science, said this research focuses on reducing that waste, helping more of the energy go into producing hydrogen rather than being lost along the way.

The team developed a TiO2 nanosphere catalyst through a series of targeted modifications including the addition of nickel atoms, the introduction of defects that help guide how energy moves, and shaping the material into tiny hollow spheres to better capture light.

These changes allow the system to hold onto energy longer and direct it to where hydrogen is formed.

When tested under controlled laboratory conditions, using a methanol-containing solution rather than full water splitting, the researchers reported hydrogen production more than 80 times higher than when using untreated commercial titanium dioxide. The system also maintained performance over repeated testing, suggesting the approach is stable over time.

While the team acknowledged further research is needed to test teh system’s performance under full sunlight and in practical hydrogen production environments, Hao said the work highlights how cheaper, widely available materials could help reduce the cost of producing green hydrogen.

“By showing how a common material can be improved to produce more hydrogen, the study points to a practical direction for future work,” he said.

“If similar gains can be achieved under real-world conditions, it could help bring down the cost of clean hydrogen production at scale.”

Hao said the findings are particularly notable because many high-performing hydrogen production systems rely on expensive precious metals such as platinum.

“This work shows that comparable performance can be achieved using low-cost, widely available materials, which is critical if hydrogen production is to scale up,” he said.

The “Nanoconfined Ni single-atom Ni–O–Ti atomic asymmetric sites for highly efficient and stable photocatalytic hydrogen evolution” paper is published in the Applied Catalysis B: Environment and Energy journal.

Researchers from Zhoukou Normal University and Xinyang University in China also participated in the research.