Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Columbia University, and the University of California, Irvine, have discovered a new mechanism that could boost the efficiency of hydrogen production through water splitting. This process relies on hydrated ion-permeable ultrathin coatings (such as porous oxide materials), which are used to select chemical species. Using advanced simulations, the scientists revealed that water confined within nanopores smaller than 0.5 nanometers shows significantly altered reactivity and proton transfer mechanisms. "This insight could pave the way for optimizing porous oxides to improve the efficiency of hydrogen production systems by tuning the porosity and surface chemistry of the oxides," said Hyuna Kwon, one of the scientists involved in this study.
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