India, Jan. 8 -- Hydrogen now can be produced without the scarce and expensive metal platinum, a research team led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden claims, using sunlight and water, potentially removing one of the biggest cost and sustainability bottlenecks in green hydrogen production. The work, published in Advanced Materials, replaces platinum co-catalysts with nanoparticles made from electrically conductive plastic-materials that are cheaper, more abundant and easier to scale.

Hydrogen is widely seen as a cornerstone of future clean energy systems because it emits only water when used. But producing it sustainably and at scale remains difficult. One major hurdle has been the reliance on platinum in photocatalytic systems ...