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New discovery could lead to water-powered cars

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Instead of using gasoline to operate your car, imagine using water combined with the power of the sun.

Such a goal may not be out of the question, thanks to a new method of harnessing solar energy discovered by Dr. Tim Lian, a professor of physical chemistry at Emory University.

Lian explained to Channel 2's Katie Walls that he, like many chemists, is trying to figure a way to efficiently convert solar energy into fuel.

“One of the ways we’ve been trying to do it is to take a water molecule and split that into hydrogen and oxygen. If you need energy, you can just burn hydrogen …. That’s a completely self-sustaining cycle and all you need to input is the solar energy,” Lian said.

Yes, we have solar panels and ways to absorb energy from the sun, but Lian explained to Walls that current methods are too expensive and costly compared with using fossil fuels.

"We already know how to do this in principle. The question is how to do it cost effectively," he said.

Lian and his team are researching how to best harvest electrons, essentially raw energy, emitted by certain metals when stimulated by sunlight.

“To be able to study that kind of process that happens very, very quickly, we need very fast lasers,” Lian said.

Lasers mimic the sun, allowing the team to study which materials perform the best.

Lian is optimistic that with more work in his field major breakthroughs will happen, including powering a vehicle efficiently and affordably using solar and hydroelectric power in his lifetime.

“We will be able to realize the day where all energy we need is solar energy and we don’t’ need to burn fossil fuels anymore,” Lian said.