The research team of Professor Jong Kyu Kim (MSE) developed new nanomaterials to decompose water, using the sun. If the water is decomposed, hydrogen and oxygen can be obtained. Hydrogen is drawing attention as one of the cleanest next-generation energy sources, so it is expected to be a core source technology that can solve energy problems of the future.
Hydrogen production through water decomposition using solar energy had been researched since the 1970s but the efficiency was too low to commercialize. The research team confirmed that water decomposition efficiency could be 6% higher than before, through a core technology that forms a helix nanostructure in bismuth vanadium oxide and tungsten trioxide. Especially, nanostructure in tungsten trioxide increases the efficiency of sunlight absorption to almost 100%.
The team of Jong Hyeok Park (CE Sungkyunkwan Univ.) and Prof. Jong Kyu Kim cooperated on the project, which was supported by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. The results were published in in Nature Communications on Sep. 2.