Personal power systems could be the wave of the future - just ask Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Daniel Nocera, Ph.D.

Nocera and others at MIT presented their personalized energy system this week at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The systems, Nocera explained, would use solar panels to provide electricity and heat for households during the day; they would also power a device called an "electrolyzer," which breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen.

At night, the stored hydrogen and oxygen would be fed into a fuel cell that would generate power, providing 24/7 electricity.

"Our goal is to make each home its own power station," Nocera said. The personal energy systems would have applications in the developing world, he added. "One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic system."

The technology is possible because of a new catalyst for producing oxygen from water. That catalyst, Nocera said, boosts oxygen production 200-fold, compared to past catalysts - and it could make the MIT researchers' personalized energy systems commercially viable at a point in the not-too-distant future.