Traditional electrolysis requires caustic potassium hydroxide, expensive electrodes, and electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Photocatalysts use sunlight to do the same thing, but previous compounds required ultraviolet light, which is a small part of the total incident solar radiation. However nearly 50% of sunlight is visible light (refer to Starship Generations agricultural lighting datasheet for solar radiation spectrum) so this could potentially be a very exciting development. For example producing rocket fuel and air on an orbiting spacecraft would require only sunlight and a quantity of water.

New Photocatalyst