An international team of researchers led by Professors Zhengxiao GUO of Department of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Weixin HUANG of University of Science and Technology of China, Richard CATLOW of University College London and Junwang TANG of Tsinghua University, has developed a photocatalytic approach to converting... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Cambridge (UK) have developed a reactor that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the air and converts it into sustainable fuel, using sunlight as the power source. The researchers say their solar-powered reactor could be used to make fuel to power cars and planes, or many... Read more →

Lake Lucerne Navigation Company (SGV) AG, a Swiss transportation company, has signed a five-year fuel offtake agreement with cleantech company Synhelion. SGV will purchase nearly 100 tons of solar fuel annually to power its fleet. This will make SGV the first navigation company in the world to use Synhelion’s solar... Read more →

Scientists have identified a new way to improve the process for using sunlight to make a liquid fuel from carbon dioxide. Researchers showed that three-dimensional silicon scaffolds on photoelectrodes improve the yield of the desired products of chemical reactions. Two examples of silicon photoelectrodes. Left: Micropillar silicon with cobalt catalysts... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $33 million for nine projects across seven states to advance concentrating solar-thermal (CST) systems technologies for solar fuel production and long-duration energy storage. CST technologies use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a receiver, helping to produce carbon-free clean fuels, heat, and... Read more →

Researchers in Japan have mimicked the process of photosynthesis to produce methane from CO2 water and sunlight. An open-access paper on their work is published in the journal ACS Engineering Au. Previously, corresponding author Kazunari Domen from the University of Tokyo and colleagues developed a system that used sunlight to... Read more →

MIT engineers have designed a new train-like system of reactors driven solely by the sun to produce green hydrogen by water-splitting. In a study published in Solar Energy Journal, the engineers lay out the conceptual design for a system that can efficiently produce solar thermochemical hydrogen. Solar thermochemical hydrogen (STCH)... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced the Solar-thermal Fuels and Thermal Energy Storage Via Concentrated Solar-thermal Energy funding opportunity, which will award $30 million for projects to produce fuels via renewable energy resources and improve thermal energy storage technologies. This announcement focuses on concentrating... Read more →

A joint research team from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and collaborators have developed a stable artificial photocatalytic system that is more efficient than natural photosynthesis. The new system mimics a natural chloroplast to convert carbon dioxide in water into methane, very efficiently using light. A paper on this... Read more →

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting based on solar energy is one promising approach for the production of green hydrogen. However, its widespread application is limited by a lack of efficient photoanodes for catalyzing the rate-limiting oxygen evolution reaction (OER), an important reaction in PEC water splitting. Recently, organometal halide perovskites (OHPs)... Read more →

SunHydrogen, the developer of a technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and water (earlier post), entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with COTEC to explore the development and optimization of industrial electroplating solutions for SunHydrogen’s semiconductor deposition, a fundamental component of the company’s nanoparticle technology. Located in Changwon,... Read more →

Sparc Technologies announced that Sparc Hydrogen, a JV between the University of Adelaide, Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) and Sparc Technologies, has executed a Kick-Start agreement with the CSIRO to undertake on-sun testing of Sparc Hydrogen’s photocatalytic water splitting (PWS) reactor at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales,... Read more →

Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and their Canadian partners have designed a low-cost photoreactor design for solar-driven synthesis. The photoreactors have a low level of complexity, are readily manufacturable via mass fabrication techniques in polymers, and are easy to adapt to diverse photocatalysts. An open-access paper on... Read more →

Synhelion and its partner the University of Florida announced that their joint project has been awarded US$2.7 million from the US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). The project aims to accelerate the large-scale development and deployment of concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) technology to produce green hydrogen... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories, co-leads of the Heliostat Consortium, announced seven awardees from a request for proposals (RFP) aimed at achieving DOE’s goals for heliostat cost reduction, sustained multifaceted innovation, and improved solar field performance. Heliostats are mirrors that... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award nearly $42 million in funding for 22 projects to advance critical technologies for producing, storing, and deploying clean hydrogen. DOE also announced $17.8 million to establish a new North American university research consortium that will help states and tribal communities implement grid... Read more →

EPFL researchers have built a pilot-scale solar reactor that produces usable heat and oxygen, in addition to generating hydrogen with unprecedented efficiency for its size. This is the first system-level demonstration of solar hydrogen generation. Unlike typical lab-scale demonstrations, it includes all auxiliary devices and components, so it gives us... Read more →

Fusion Fuel has been awarded €3.6 million in grant funding through Component 5 (‘C-5’) of Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan to develop a 1 MW decentralized green hydrogen production facility co-located with a hydrogen refueling station in Elvas, Portugal. Fusion Fuel had previously been awarded €36 million in C-5 funding... Read more →

ETH-Zurich spin-off Synhelion has raised CHF 22 million (US$23.6 million) in another financing round. The funds were primarily provided by existing investors and selected new strategic investors, including Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS). The proceeds of the investment round will accelerate the company’s growth and support the scaling and commercialization... Read more →

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated a new technique, modeled after a metabolic process found in some bacteria, for converting CO2 into liquid acetate, a key ingredient in “liquid sunlight” or solar fuels produced through artificial photosynthesis. The work, reported in a paper in Nature Catalysis,... Read more →

Fusion Fuel (earlier post) completed the interconnection of its H2Évora plant to the Portuguese electric grid and has successfully commissioned the facility. The demonstration project, comprising 15 HEVO-Solar units and associated balance-of-plant equipment, will produce 15 tons of green hydrogen per year and avoid the emission of 135 tons of... Read more →

Scientists from the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are providing researchers with a guide to how best to measure the efficiency of producing hydrogen directly from solar power. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting, which relies on sunlight to split water into... Read more →

ETH Zurich spin-off Synhelion has started the construction of DAWN—its own industrial plant to produce synthetic fuels using solar heat. (Earlier post.) Located in Jülich, Germany, the facility will demonstrate the entire process from concentrating sunlight to producing synthetic liquid fuel on an industrial scale. The production process—using only solar... Read more →

Researchers in Europe led by a team from ETH Zurich have designed a fuel production system that uses water, CO2, and sunlight to produce aviation fuel. The team implemented the system at pilot-scale in the field to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the entire sun-to-liquid fuel process chain, from H2O... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Michigan and McGill University in Canada report photochemical syngas synthesis using a core/shell Au@Cr2O3 dual cocatalyst in coordination with multistacked InGaN/GaN nanowires (NWs) with the sole inputs of CO2, water, and solar light. Their paper is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences... Read more →

A research team from Tokyo Tech has used an alumina-supported, iron-based compound to develop a catalyst that can efficiently convert CO2 into formic acid (HCOOH) with ~90% selectivity. An open-acess paper on the work is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. An et al. A wide-spread soil mineral, alpha-iron-(III) oxyhydroxide,... Read more →

Using a hematite photocatalyst, a team led by researchers from Kobe University has succeeded in producing both hydrogen gas and hydrogen peroxide at the same time from sunlight and water. An open-access paper on the work is published in Nature Communications. Hydrogen has gained attention as one of the possible... Read more →

Synhelion, a developer of solar fuels, and INERATEC, a manufacturer of chemical reactor technologies, are partnering to to scale up the production of solar fuels as replacement for fossil fuels for transportation. While electrification is a viable option for many sectors, fuel-intensive industries such as aviation will continue to require... Read more →

A research team has developed a new artificial photosynthesis device component with remarkable stability and longevity as it selectively converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into two promising sources of renewable fuels: ethylene and hydrogen. The researchers’ findings, which they recently reported in the journal Nature Energy, reveal how the device... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), joined by partners at Sandia National Laboratories and the Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute, launched the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon), an international effort to drive down the cost of heliostats. HelioCon, led by NREL, emphasizes the significance of heliostats as... Read more →

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered a new way to train microbes to make n-butanol. A team of biologists and engineers modified Rhodopseudomonas palustris TIE-1 (TIE-1) so that it can produce a biofuel using only three renewable and naturally abundant source ingredients: carbon dioxide, solar panel-generated electricity... Read more →

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) has launched a call for funding for the construction and operation of a development platform for power-to-liquid (PtL) fuels with a production capacity of up to 10,000 tons of PtL fuel per year. By switching to electricity-based fuel, we can save... Read more →

Researchers at Monash University in Australia have conducted a lifecycle analysis and net energy analysis (LCA/NEA) of a hypothetical large-scale solar-electrolysis plant for the production of green hydrogen. The open-access paper on the study is published in the RSC journal Energy & Environmental Science. Process flow diagram and construction phase... Read more →

Swiss research intsitute Empa’s future mobility demonstrator, “move”, is investigating three paths for CO2 reduction in road traffic—electric mobility, hydrogen mobility and synthetic fuels—against the background of a rapidly changing energy system. All these concepts have advantages and drawbacks in terms of energy, operation and economics. In order to use... Read more →

Cummins Inc. joined government leaders and partner Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest energy companies, to announce its plans for one of the world’s largest electrolyzer plants for the production of green hydrogen to be located in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. This investment in Spain comes on the heels of Iberdrola... Read more →

Ireland-based electrolyzer company Fusion Fuel Green PLC will collaborate with Consolidated Contractors Group S.A.L. (Offshore) (CCC), to develop green hydrogen plants in the Middle East. CCC and Fusion Fuel have agreed to cooperate on projects involving the production of green hydrogen for potential clients in the refining and petrochemical industries... Read more →

Researchers at Xi’an Jiaotong University in China have developed a Na-ion direct formate fuel cell to co-produce electricity and hydrogen (e-h2 Na-DFFC). A paper on their work is published in the Journal of Power Sources. Using formate—a solar fuel that can be readily synthetized from carbon dioxide—the researchers reported that... Read more →

Syzygy Plasmonics, a technology company developing a high-performance photocatalyst for the industrial gas, chemical and energy industries, announced a $23-million Series B financing led by Horizons Ventures with participation from new global investors including Equinor Ventures. (Earlier post.) Licensed from Rice University, Syzygy’s “antenna-reactor” plasmonic photocatalyst has been published in... Read more →

Scientists have demonstrated that modifying the topmost layer of atoms on the surface of electrodes can have a remarkable impact on the activity of solar water splitting. As reported in Nature Energy, bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) electrodes with more bismuth on the surface (relative to vanadium) generate higher amounts of electrical... Read more →

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed photocatalytic composite polymer nanoparticles (“polymer dots”) that show promising performance and stability for the production of hydrogen from water and sunlight. An open-access paper on the work appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. These polymer dots are designed to be both... Read more →

Utilization of renewable solar energy is crucial for addressing the global energy and environmental concerns and achieving sustainable development. In this regard, photocatalytic water splitting has attracted significant interest as a cost-effective means to convert sustainable solar energy into valuable chemicals. However, because efficiency is sensitive to reaction conditions and... Read more →

Researchers at MIT have developed a method that could significantly boost the performance of carbon capture and conversion systems that use catalytic surfaces to enhance the rates of carbon-sequestering electrochemical reactions. Such catalytic systems are an attractive option for carbon capture because they can produce useful, valuable products such as... Read more →

Researchers at KAUST have discovered that a form of iron oxide—Fe2O3—makes an excellent co-catalyst for a promising photocatalytic material called gallium nitride for the production f hydrogen. An open-access paper on their work appears in Scientific Reports. Finding photocatalysts that can efficiently use sunlight to produce clean hydrogen fuel from... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, with colleagues at the University of Tokyo, have developed a standalone device that converts sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into formic acid, a carbon-neutral fuel, without requiring any additional components or electricity. The device is a significant step toward achieving artificial photosynthesis—a process mimicking... Read more →

Photoelectrical chemical cells (PECs) have the potential to produce hydrogen fuel through artificial photosynthesis, an emerging renewable energy technology that uses energy from sunlight to drive chemical reactions such as splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The key to a PEC’s success lies not only in how well its photoelectrode... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $100 million in funding over five years for two new awards focused on advancing artificial photosynthesis for the production of fuels from sunlight. The Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), led by the California Institute of Technology in close partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,... Read more →

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Caltech have found that copper that was once bound with oxygen is better at converting carbon dioxide into renewable fuels than copper that was never bound to oxygen. For their study, published in the journal ACS Catalysis, the scientists performed X-ray... Read more →

SunHydrogen, the developer of a technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and water, has extended its sponsored research agreement with the University of Iowa through 31 August 2020. The current extension will allow the company to increase focus on its more efficient GEN 2 hydrogen production technology which is... Read more →

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, are attempting to convert carbon dioxide to fuel using energy from sunlight. Recent results have shown that it is possible to use their technique selectively to produce methane, carbon monoxide or formic acid from carbon dioxide and water. An open-access paper on the work appears... Read more →

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have developed a hybrid material constructed from a metal oxide nanosheet and a light-absorbing molecule for splitting water molecules (H2O) to obtain hydrogen (H2) under sunlight. The research team led by Kazuhiko Maeda at Tokyo Tech developed a new photocatalyst consisting of... Read more →