Interest in next-generation clean energy has been increasing recently to address various problems caused by climate change. In particular, hydrogen energy has been actively researched and developed because it faces few resource constraints and can provide an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional fossil fuels.

Professor Jinsoo Kim's research team at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU), Division of Advanced Materials Engineering, has developed a technology enabling very efficient and facile production of hydrogen energy, attracting attention in academic circles.

Although previously reported hydrogen production technologies have several advantages, their hydrogen-generation levels declined significantly over time, posing a critical problem for practical application.

Professor Kim's team traced the cause of these shortcomings to semiconductor nanostructures. They overcame this by fabricating high-quality semiconductor nanostructures and developing a technique to generate hydrogen using a photoelectrochemical water-splitting method.

They confirmed that the proposed technology improved efficiency by tens of times compared to previously reported water-splitting-based hydrogen production methods, and also achieved substantial improvement in the long-term stability that had been a fatal drawback for commercialization.

Experimental results showed that applying this technology not only produced hydrogen with high efficiency but also exhibited very stable performance during prolonged hydrogen generation, the research team reported.

The research findings were published consecutively as two 'Communication' articles in J. Materials Chemistry A (IF: 12.73), the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Principal Investigator (PI) Professor Jinsoo Kim said, "It is significant not only that we secured foundational technologies, including fabrication of high-quality semiconductor nanostructures and high-efficiency water-splitting hydrogen production techniques, but also that we demonstrated their potential for practical application. In particular, it is a major achievement that the students who participated in the experiments and manuscript preparation—first author Sangmun Han and doctoral candidate Siyun Noh—gained experience that will enable them to grow as researchers in advanced science and technology fields."

Meanwhile, this research was supported by the Research Foundation and the 4th-phase BK21 Program. Professor Kim's team plans to develop a variety of advanced components through applied research based on the semiconductor nanostructure fabrication and water-splitting hydrogen generation technologies.