water-splitting-catalyst-illus (IMAGE)

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

water-splitting-catalyst-illus

Caption

This illustration shows two possible types of surface layers for a catalyst that performs the water-splitting reaction, the first step in making hydrogen fuel: The gray surface is lanthanum oxide, and the colorful surface is nickel oxide. A rearrangement of nickel oxide's atoms while carrying out the reaction made it twice as efficient. Researchers hope to harness this phenomenon to make better catalysts. Lanthanum atoms are depicted in green, nickel atoms in blue, and oxygen atoms in red.

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CUBE3D

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