Seriously: invest in this thing if you can figure out how. A world turns its thirsty eyes to you.

High Efficiency at Low Cost: New Catalyst Moves Seawater Desalination, Hydrogen Production Closer to Commercialization
University of Houston | January 28, 2021

Seawater makes up about 96% of all water on earth, making it a tempting resource to meet the world’s growing need for clean drinking water and carbon-free energy. And scientists already have the technical ability to both desalinate seawater and split it to produce hydrogen, which is in demand as a source of clean energy.

But existing methods require multiple steps performed at high temperatures over a lengthy period of time in order to produce a catalyst with the needed efficiency. That requires substantial amounts of energy and drives up the cost.

Researchers from the University of Houston have reported an oxygen evolving catalyst that takes just minutes to grow at room temperature on commercially available nickel foam. Paired with a previously reported hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst, it can achieve industrially required current density for overall seawater splitting at low voltage. The work is described in a paper published in Energy & Environmental Science.

Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH (TcSUH) and corresponding author for the paper, said speedy, low-cost production is critical to commercialization.

This dude may be a good scientist, but he states economic principles any five-year-old with a lemonade stand would know.

“Any discovery, any technology development, no matter how good it is, the end cost is going to play the most important role,” he said. “If the cost is prohibitive, it will not make it to market.”

Duh.

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