IISER Pune faculty member Dr R Vaidhyanathan's work has been granted a US patent for the preparation of a covalent organic framework (COF) that can serve as an electrocatalyst to split water.

Hydrogen and oxygen, the constitutent molecules of water, thus released, have vital industrial applications. Hydrogen can potentially be used as an alternative to the widely used hydrocarbon fuels and oxygen can be used as a reagent in many industrial processes. 

Along with the application of electricity, the use of electrocatalysts can aid activation of water splitting. Nanoparticles offer promise as good electrocatalysts,  but they are usually grown by using capping agents, which, despite helping in particle size-reduction, can impede accessibility to such particles and thereby the kinetics of the reaction.

The COFs prepared by Dr Vaidhyanathan and team offer a promising alternative to such capping agents and make the reaction significantly faster.