Hydrogen can be produced in a way that is carbon neutral by adding bacteria to forestry or household waste in a similar way to that used for biogas production. However, this process does not produce much hydrogen gas for the amount of biomass needed.

Now, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have found that a bacterium called Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus, which was isolated in a hot spring in New Zealand, .produces twice as much hydrogen gas as the bacteria currently used. The discovery increase the possibilities of competitive biological production of hydrogen gas.

According to Karin Willquist, who is presenting a doctoral thesis on the research, "If hydrogen gas is produced from biomass, there is no addition of carbon dioxide because the carbon dioxide formed in the production is the same that is absorbed from the atmosphere by the plants being used. Bio-hydrogen gas will probably complement biogas in the future. A first step towards a hydrogen gas society could be to mix hydrogen gas with methane gas and use the existing methane gas infrastructure. Buses in Malmö, for example, drive on a mixture of hydrogen gas and methane gas."

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A team of MIT Biological Material Group researchers has developed a way of using a modified virus as a kind of biological scaffold that can assemble the nanoscale components needed to split a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

During photosynthesis in plant cells, natural pigments absorb sunlight, while catalysts then promote the use of that energy to split water into its component hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

The MIT team, led by Professor Angela Belcher, engineered a common, harmless bacterial virus called M13 so that it would attract and bind with molecules of  a biological pigment (in this case zinc porphyrins) and a catalyst (iridium oxide). The virus acts as a kind of scaffolding, causing the pigments and catalysts to line up with the right spacing to trigger the water-splitting reaction.

Using the virus to make the system assemble itself improves the efficiency of the oxygen production fourfold.
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A team of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley has discovered an inexpensive metal catalyst that can generate hydrogen gas from water.

According to Hemamala Karunadasa, the lead author of a paper in Nature describing the work, "Our new proton reduction catalyst is based on a molybdenum-oxo metal complex that is about 70 times cheaper than platinum, today’s most widely used metal catalyst for splitting the water molecule. In addition, our catalyst does not require organic additives, and can operate in neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water, the most abundant source of hydrogen on earth and a natural electrolyte. These qualities make our catalyst ideal for renewable energy and sustainable chemistry."

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Scientists at the University of East Anglia, led by Professor Thomas Nann, have reported a breakthrough in the production of hydrogen from water using the energy of sunlight.

Hydrogen is obtained from water by electrolysis. But, because the efficiency of the process is typically only between 20 and 40%, using a solar photovoltaic process to generate the necessary electricity uses more energy than is stored in the hydrogen which is produced.

The East Anglia team have found a way to increase the efficiency of the process to 60% or more, which could make it cost-effective.

They achieved this by using gold electrodes coated with nanoclusters of indium phosphide, which are up to 400 times more likely to absorb incoming photons than current electrodes. The nanoparticle-coated  electrodes are also much more durable than alternatives.

The scientists are now investigating the possibility of using alternative, cheaper materials than gold for the electrodes.

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General Motors has released the newest version of its hydrogen fuel cell  engine and says that hydrogen fuel cells could be cost cometitive with other technologies by 2015.

General Motors’ "second generation" fuel cell is half the size of previous "Project Driveway" stack. Although significantly smaller in size and weight it is capable of generating more electric power than the previous version. The weight has been reduced to 130kg, the number of parts has been cut nearly in half and the amount of platinum catalyst has been reduced from 80g to just 30g.

A GM Hydrogen Fuel Celll Test Vehicle

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British company, Riversimple, has shown its Mk 1 "network electric" car. The car is a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle about the size of a Smart Car.

The car features unique technologies that enable it to run on a 6kW fuel cell, with a fuel consumption equivalent to 0.008 litres per kilometre with greenhouse gas emissions at 30g per kilometre - less than a third of that from the most efficient petrol-engine cars  (and ten times better than that if the hydrogen comes from renewable resources). It has a range of 320 kilometres and a top speed of 80 kilometres per hour

If that’s not revolutionary enough, Riversimple has a unique business model:

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In 2006, scientists from the Kurchatov Research Centre in Moscow published a description of a novel technique which they had developed for the stoage of hydrogen in strong tubes of glass called capillary arrays.

Although the technology was developed for the Russian space program, the scientists recognised that it had wider application for the safe storage and transportation of hydrogen in vehicles and could even replace batteries in domestic electronic devices including laptop computers and mobile phones.

As a result, one of the scientists, Evgeny Velikhov, approached Moshe Stern, an Israeli entrepreneur, who began further development of the technology in his company, C.En, based in Switzerland.

The challenges of using hydrogen have always been the risk of explosion and the size and weight of containers needed to store the gas . C.En claims to have overcome those problems with the capillary arrays. Dan Eliezer, C.En’s chief scientist says that "Glass has proven to have three times the storage capacity at only a third of the weight of steel containers that are now commonly used for hydrogen storage, and it’s far cheaper".

C.En submitted the product to Germany’s Federal Institute for Materials Research & Testing which has now completed two years of testing. The group that conducted the testing concluded that "The lightweight storage and safety factors give the technology a huge commercial potential for a whole range of industries".

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Hyundai Motor has announced that it plans to commercially produce its first hydrogen fuel-cell car starting in 2012. The fuel-cell vehicle would come three years after Hyundai introduces its first petrol-electric hybrid Avante compact car in 2009.

Hyundai has previously announced that a lithium-ion powered hybrid version of the Sonata sedan is planned for the United States market in 2010 and a hybrid version of its compact Avante sedan will be on sale in 2009, but the Avante will not be available in the U.S. The company has already produced about 2,800 of the compact Avante hybrids as part of various pilot projects.

Hyundai plans to be producing half a million hybrids a year by 2018.

Hyundai Sonata Hybrid

Hyundai Avante Hybrid

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Researchers at Penn State University have developed a way to produce hydrogen from water using just sunlight and no electricity.

Currently, most hydrogen is produced from natural gas and, so, does not reduce dependence on fossil fuels - and the process produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis is well known but requires previously generated electricity.

The Penn State researchers built diodes from two different groups of nanotubes. One side is a titanium dioxde nanotube array which acts as an electron donor (an n-type material); the other side is a nanotube array of cuprous oxide titanium dioxide material which accepts electrons (a p-type material). When the titamium dioxide side is exposed to sunlight, it absorbs light. The energy causes electron to be released and these pass to the copper-titanium side. The electrical current causes water to break down into oxygen from the titanium side and hydrogen from the copper-titanium side.

The research team is now working on more efficient ways to produce the nanotubes.

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Mazda Corporation has announced that it will begin testing the world’s first hydrogen hybrid cars with a dual-fuel system, enabling the use of either hydrogen or petrol, on public roads in Japan this year.

Mazda will display its Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid minivan and RX-8 Hydrogen RE at the G8 Hoddaido Toyako Summit in July. The next step will be commercial leasing in Japan during this fiscal year.

Mazda claims that the hybrid system will give the minivan a range of 200 kilometres using hydrogen fuel.

The vehicle will also incorporate plant-derived materials in its interior plastics and seat covers.

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