Polish chemists also report a photochemical means of splitting water.

[NNadir]

"Recently, the production of hydrogen has received much attention, because of its potential application as a clean source of energy. Water splitting by a photocatalytic process using oxide semiconductors can be considered to be successful, in regard to it being aneconomic and clean technology; as a result, it can resolve the problems of energy consumption and environmentaldegradation, at least partially. Efficient conversion of solar energy has been a challenging problem, and numerous studies have been undertaken in this direction. Biomass conversion, photocatalytic cells, and photocatalytic water splitting are the best-known examples. It has been reported that some metal oxides, such as TiO2, SrTiO2, ZrO2, BaTi4O9,and CeO2,1-10 possess reasonable activities for water splitting into H2 and O2 in the stoichiometric ratio under ultraviolet (UV) and visible-light irradiation. TiO2 has been widely used in photocatalysis, because of its favorable band-gap energy (3.2 eV in anatase) and its high stability in aqueous solution under UV irradiation."

From the upcoming issue of Energy and Fuels.

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/enfuem/asap/abs/ef0400619.html

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Sounds like freedom from oil to me.... but who would own the

technology?? Would this break down barriers and redistribute power, share resources, provide cheaper energy, and promote distributed wealth? After all.... water is EVERYWHERE.

Then there is this: www.ch2bc.org

[papau]

2. methanol as the sacrificial reagent yields some hydrogen - interesting

but too early to say much more than "interesting"