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Nickel coating a hope for hydrogen fuel

Scientists at Stanford University in California have found a more efficient way to produce hydrogen by splitting water molecules, paving the way for cleaner fuel.

To produce hydrogen, water is split using two interconnecting semiconducting electrodes. Silicon, a semiconductor, corrodes rapidly when put into an electrolyte solution.

But the new research found coating the silicon electrodes with nickel prevents their corrosion. This allowed the splitting of water molecules for a longer period of time to produce hydrogen.

Until the Stanford University experiment, water splitting had been too expensive to conduct. However the researchers used solar energy to split the water into its components.

Read more at Stanford University

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