TCD researchers close to major breakthrough in renewable energy storage

Current tools used to split water are enormously expensive, and nobody has yet discovered catalysts– something that speeds up a chemical reaction – that are strong enough and that could do the job at a considerably lower cost.

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) could be tantalisingly close to discovering a "holy grail" method of producing renewable energy where the only waste left over would be water.

With reducing carbon emissions foremost in the global fight to mitigate the climate crisis, the researchers explored whether it would be possible to use renewable electricity to split water, which is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, to produce green and energy-rich hydrogen.