29 August 2002

Hydrogen power: A catalyst for change

Hydrogen is perhaps the most environmentally friendly of fuels — forming just water during combustion. Generating hydrogen from renewable resources would make this fuel particularly attractive, but production methods are plagued with low efficiency or complex processing. Now comes evidence that a platinum-based catalyst can be used to generate hydrogen by reacting sugars and sugar-based compounds with liquid water at 215 °C. This discovery might lead to an efficient way of generating power from renewables such as glucose, derived from energy crops or agricultural waste.

Hydrogen from catalytic reforming of biomass-derived hydrocarbons in liquid water
R. D. CORTRIGH, R. R. DAVDA & J. A. DUMESIC
Nature 418, 964–967 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature01009
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Renewable fuels: Harnessing hydrogen
ESTEBAN CHORNET & STEFAN CZERNIK
Biomass can produce clean fuels and could be a vital, renewable energy source for the future. The demonstration of hydrogen production from biomass-derived molecules marks progress towards this goal.
Nature 418, 928–929 (2002); doi:10.1038/418928a
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Sweet step to hydrogen revolution