A team of Australian scientists predicts that a revolutionary new way to
harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy
supplies from water will be a reality within seven years.
Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to
produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple
engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts
and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.
It would be the cheapest, cleanest and most abundant energy source ever
developed: the main by-products would be oxygen and water. Rooftop panels
placed on 1.6 million houses, for example, could supply Australia's entire
energy needs.
"This is potentially huge, with a market the size of all the existing
markets for coal, oil and gas combined," says Professor Janusz Nowotny,
who with Professor Chris Sorrell is leading a solar hydrogen research project
at the University of NSW Centre for Materials and Energy Conversion. The team
is thought to be the most advanced in developing the cheap, light-sensitive
materials that will be the basis of the technology.
"Based on our research results, we know we are on the right track and
with the right support we now estimate that we can deliver a new material
within seven years," says Nowotny.
Sorrell says Australia is ideally placed to take advantage of the enormous
potential of this new technology: "We have abundant sunlight, huge
reserves of titanium and we're close to the burgeoning energy markets of the
Asia-Pacific region. But this technology could be used anywhere in the world.
It's been the dream of many people for a long time to develop it and it's
exciting to know that it is now within such close reach."
The results of the team's work will be presented this week at an international
conference.
Eminent delegates from Japan, Germany, the United States and Australia will be
in Sydney on August 27 for a one-day International Conference on Materials for
Hydrogen Energy at UNSW.
Among them will be the inventors of the solar hydrogen process, Professors
Akira Fujishima and Kenichi Honda. Both are frontrunners for the Nobel Prize
in chemistry and are the laureates of the 2004 Japan Prize.
Since their 1971 discovery that allowed the splitting of water into hydrogen
and oxygen, researchers have made huge advances in achieving one of the
ultimate goals of science and technology - the design of materials required to
split water using solar light.
The UNSW team opted to use titania ceramic photoelectrodes because they have
the right semiconducting properties and the highest resistance to water
corrosion.
Professors Nowotny and Sorrell say that with appropriate government support
and financial backing, their technology could help Australia become part an
OPEC of the future.
'"We have a solar energy empire in Australia and have a moral obligation
to utilise this," says Nowotny. "The very same sentiments were
shared by David Sukuzi when he visited Sydney recently. He said he hoped
Australia would serve as an example to the rest of the world."
Solar hydrogen, Professor Sorrell argues, is not incompatible with coal. It
can be used to produce solar methanol, which produces less carbon dioxide than
conventional methods. "As a mid-term energy carrier it has a lot to say
for it," he says.
At present, the UNSW work is backed by Rio Tinto, Sialon Ceramics and Austral
Bricks A major producer of titania slag, Rio Tinto hopes that an early outcome
will be a more environmentally friendly and economically attractive local
source of fuel for its remote mining operations while Sialon Ceramics is
interesting in production and marketing of a solar-hydrogen production device.
Issued Monday 23 August.
Media contact: Mary
O'Malley, ph 9385 2873, 043 888 1124, or
Susi
Hamilton, ph 9385 1583, 0422 934 024.
