Cheap source of energy: Cell splits water via sunlight to produce hydrogen
Tony Fitzpatrick at Physorg.com - Pratim Biswas and his group at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a photocatalytic cell that enables sunlight-powered hydrolysis, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. They believe it will scale. Yay! Cheap hydrogen for our fuel cells. [skype]
Meanwhile, Jerry Woodall, Charles Allen, and Jeffrey Ziebarth at Purdue have found an aluminum/galium combination that creates hydrogen if you pour water on it. It oxidizes the aluminum, so you need a process to recycle it, but the galium remains unchanged.