Sunlight is an abundant renewable energy source crucial for decarbonising society. Converting sunlight into chemicals and fuels, such as hydrogen, is emerging as a promising solution to address intermittency and decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors. Photocatalysis offers a direct method for transforming sunlight into solar hydrogen, eliminating the need for capital-intensive solar panels, electrolysers, and complex balance of plants. This makes photocatalysis a potentially more cost-effective approach to solar hydrogen production. However, commercialising photocatalytic solar hydrogen production remains challenging, as current performance levels fall below practical feasibility thresholds. To ensure viability, photocatalytic systems must achieve solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiencies exceeding 5%. This project will establish a Sunlight-to-Hydrogen Research Hub (SH2R Hub), an international collaboration led by UNSW (Australia) in partnership with Universiti Malaya (Malaysia), Institut Teknologi Bandung (Indonesia), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), University of Tokyo (Japan), University of Newcastle (Australia), and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia).

The hub will coordinate global efforts to accelerate scientific advancements and the commercialisation of photocatalytic solar hydrogen production technology, contributing to the 2050 net-zero emissions target. The hub will foster international research and development collaborations in three key areas:

• Photocatalyst discovery
• System engineering
• Techno-economics studies