Chemical and engineering researchers have devised a cost-efficient method to use metal waste to catalyze hydrogen from water without fossil fuels and with only one byproduct, water vapor. According to findings in the Journal of Material Chemistry A, the scientists discovered that swarf, a byproduct of machining nickel alloy, stainless steel and titanium, is covered with ridges and grooves tens of nanometers wide where platinum atoms can be deposited in amounts about one-tenth of those needed for current state-of-the-art commercial catalysts.