Do you know that scientists develop a way of producing Hydrogen from water at room temperature without even a supply of electricity?

Scientists at the University of California Santa, Santa Cruz (UCSC) develop a way of producing Hydrogen gas from water using aluminium and gallium at room temperature.

The research was published in the journal Applied Nano Materials in February and has a pending US patent application.

Aluminium is a perfect metal for extracting Hydrogen from water because of its highly reactive nature, it quickly reacts with oxygen and separates the hydrogen from it.

But make sure, its pure form is so reactive that it instantly reacts with the oxygen in the air and forms aluminium oxide and will not react with the water.

Here comes the part of Gallium. You can find the Gallium in a liquid state at slightly room temperature. It can help to remove the layer of Almunium oxide. Now aluminium can easily react with water.

The reaction of aluminum and gallium with water to produce hydrogen gas is already common scientific knowledge but the new technology features innovations that bring it closer to practical applications.

In previous studies as we know the aluminum-rich mixture is used to produce hydrogen but perusing the Gallium-rich mixture produces an unexpectedly high amount of hydrogen.

This discovery was made by co-author Isai Lopez, who is a student of Bakthan Singaram, the co-corresponding author of the paper.

After the process we can extract 95% of the Gallium extract and the only mixture left is Alumina [Aluminum Oxide] which can be used for another process.

This is important because gallium is an expensive and rare mineral. Alumina has many applications including spark plugs, abrasion-resistant tiles and cutting tools.

Researchers found that if we use a 3:1 ratio of Gallium and Aluminum then it'll be the best mixture for producing a high amount of hydrogen.

Researchers continuously research scaling up the production of hydrogen for the industry level.

As we know the current trend is electric vehicles. These electric vehicles use lithium-ion battery cells to power vehicles and it runs on the roads. An alternate way of powering vehicles can be hydrogen.

Hydrogen power vehicles are convenient to use because of decreasing dependencies on fossils of Lithium and cobalt.

These vehicles can be easily refuelled just like any conventional fuel now.