Imitating plants, MIT researchers reach solar power 'Nirvana'

"This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Daniel Nocera, describing work that is being released in the July 31 issue of science, according to a university news service.

"Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Nocera is seeking to tap the huge amounts of energy that come into the earth daily from the sun.

"In one hour, the amount of sun that hits the face of the earth is what we use in an entire year globally for our energy," he said according to MIT Tech TV.

Nocera, along Matthew Kanan, a post doctoral fellow in his lab developed a process to use the sun's energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. That oxygen and hydrogen would later be recombined in a fuel cell, creating energy that could be used at night.

"All of a sudden your house has become a power station, a coal-powered power plant effectively, it's become a gas station," he said according to MIT news station.

A catalyst they use facilitates the process of producing oxygen gas from water while another catalyst produces the hydrogen gas. They say the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that takes place in photosynthesis in plants.

"Our discovery is we figured out how to split water to hydrogen and oxygen and to do it efficiently and to use earth abundant materials. You can easily manufacture it and what's special is that you can do it in a glass of water at atmospheric pressures in room temperature.

Nocera is confident about the prospects of the process.

"That's why I know it's going to work. It's so easy to implement," he states.