Sun Catalytix, a renewable energy startup that got $2 million in backing from Polaris Ventures Partners sometime back, will now get the benefit of an added $1 million, making their total investment $3 million. Professor Daniel Nocera made a breakthrough in 2007 with his work that dealt with finding out ways to come up with a process similar to photosynthesis in order to create cheap solar energy stored as fuel. The pioneering research that Nocera unveiled last year has been called the most important single solar energy discovery of the century.
The foundation of the company’s technology, which Nocera has sought to patent, is a low-cost catalyst for an electrolyzer, a device that splits water to make hydrogen. The hydrogen produced can be used with a fuel cell to make electricity or could be combined with other materials to store energy in a liquid fuel, such as methanol or ammonia. The catalyst used to split the water molecules consists of cobalt phosphate, which is cheap and abundant compared with expensive metals such as platinum.
A working model will take years to complete and a lot of components will be taken into consideration such as affordability, inclusion of solar panels and hydrogen storage. Nocera expects that his research will help homeowners to split their own water into hydrogen at home and power their dwelling with solar panels during the day, while the stored hydrogen would take over to make electricity at night with a fuel cell.
Via: CleanTechnica
