The finding matters because of what sits at the heart of any hydrogen economy: the need to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. This process, known as water electrolysis, is one of the most promising routes to clean hydrogen fuel, but it is normally carried out with pure, treated water. That feedstock is expensive to produce and, in many parts of the world, scarce. Seawater, by contrast, accounts for roughly 97 percent of the water on the planet and is readily available almost anywhere with a coastline. Scientists have therefore wanted for years to run electrolyzers on seawater directly, removing the need for costly desalination plants before a single molecule of hydrogen is made.

The obstacle is chemistry. Seawater carries large amounts of chloride ions, the dissolved component of salt, and these ions create two major problems for electrolysis. First, they corrode and degrade the metal catalysts that drive the reaction, eating away at the electrode surfaces over time. Second, they compete with the oxygen-evolution reaction, the half of electrolysis in which oxygen is released at the electrode surface. Instead of producing oxygen cleanly, the reaction can produce toxic chlorine and related byproducts, contaminating the output and undermining the selectivity that efficient electrolysis requires.

Dr. Tanveer Ul Haq, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Sharjah and a co-author of the study, framed the challenge in stark terms. “So, the challenge isn’t just ‘can we split seawater?’ It’s ‘Can we do it selectively and durably, without the salt wrecking the catalyst or hijacking the reaction?'” he said. The new catalyst system is the team’s answer to both halves of that question, pairing a corrosion-resistant material design with a surface chemistry that favors oxygen production over chlorine formation even in salty conditions.

A key to the material’s performance lies in its structure. According to Dr. Ul Haq, the catalyst formed tiny, densely packed, pyramid-shaped nanostructures during synthesis. This morphology gives the catalyst a significantly larger active surface area than plain nickel hydroxide, which translates directly into more sites where the electrolysis reaction can occur. The researchers developed the material using a range of advanced characterization techniques, which allowed them to document both the structure of the catalyst and its behavior under operating conditions in simulated seawater.

The choice of elements is equally deliberate. Many of the top-performing water-splitting catalysts in use today rely on rare and expensive metals such as platinum or iridium, whose cost and limited supply have been persistent barriers to scaling up green hydrogen production. The Sharjah team’s catalyst instead uses nickel, an abundant and inexpensive material; cerium, which is modestly available; and phosphate, an extremely common and low-cost component. All three are abundantly available in nature and relatively inexpensive to obtain. Dr. Ul Haq described the combination as “far more realistic to manufacture at an industrial scale” than many of the alternatives now used by the industry, a point of particular significance as the hydrogen sector pursues a concerted push toward affordable, earth-abundant metal catalysts.

The authors also attribute durability to their design, maintaining that the catalyst remains effective for longer periods under real operating conditions than earlier models. “In a stress test, it ran continuously at high output for about 80 hours in simulated seawater without breaking down or losing performance — a good sign of practical durability, not just a one-off lab result,” Dr. Ul Haq noted. The researchers are careful, however, to put that figure in context: the catalytic system has demonstrated stable operation for 80 hours, which falls short of what a commercial-scale plant would ultimately require. “Nonetheless, it is a meaningful early signal that the corrosion-resistance strategy holds up under realistic, salty conditions rather than just in theory,” he concluded.

The broader context for this work is the role hydrogen is expected to play in decarbonizing sectors that are difficult to electrify directly, such as steelmaking, shipping and heavy trucking. Yet most hydrogen produced today comes either from fossil-fuel-based processes or from electrolysis that depends on relatively scarce and not readily available clean water. The Sharjah team describes their approach as an effort to make the entire operation green, producing hydrogen with renewable electricity in a manner that is both affordable and scalable, and one that does not rely on fossil fuels to run. In that sense, the catalyst addresses not only the electrode chemistry but also the supply-chain constraints that have kept green hydrogen expensive.

The practical payoffs for renewable-energy industries could be substantial. Asked about potential benefits, Dr. Ul Haq identified cost-effectiveness and simplicity as the most direct advantages of the method. “If catalysts like this one can reliably run on untreated or lightly treated seawater rather than purified water, it would remove a major cost and infrastructure burden from green hydrogen production, with no need for expensive desalination or water purification just to feed an electrolyzer,” he said. “That’s especially valuable for coastal industrial facilities, island nations, or any region near the ocean but short on fresh water.”

Dr. Ul Haq placed the advance in a longer arc of progress. “This kind of research chips away at one of the practical bottlenecks standing between ‘green hydrogen is theoretically great’ and ‘green hydrogen is something we can actually build at scale, everywhere, cheaply,'” he emphasized. “It’s not a finished commercial product yet, but it’s a solid, well-documented step in that direction.” The study, titled “Coupling electronic modulation with oxyanion chemistry for chloride-resistant seawater electrolysis,” was published on 3 August 2026 in Chemical Communications. For now, the 80-hour stress test stands as the headline result: an early but carefully documented demonstration that a cheap, abundant catalyst can survive the ocean’s chemistry long enough to keep hydrogen flowing.

Subject of Research: Chloride-resistant seawater electrolysis using an earth-abundant nickel, cerium and phosphate catalyst

Article Title: Scientists report low-cost approach to hydrogen production from seawater

Article References: Scientists report low-cost approach to hydrogen production from seawater. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: hydrogen production, seawater electrolysis, electrocatalysis, nickel hydroxide, cerium oxide, phosphate, chloride corrosion, green hydrogen, water splitting, renewable energy, University of Sharjah, catalyst durability

The book’s subject, Ibn Khaldun, was born in Tunis in 1332 and lived one of the most turbulent lives of his era. He lost his parents and relatives to a plague epidemic, was imprisoned for long periods by some of the volatile North African rulers he served, and endured the deaths of his wife and children in a shipwreck. Out of this upheaval emerged a prolific career as historian, philosopher, scholar, and statesman, capped by the Muqaddimah, the voluminous introduction to his universal history in which he laid out systematic criteria for distinguishing historical truth from error. In doing so, he effectively founded a science of civilization, or umran, that sought to explain how human societies cohere, flourish, and decay.

The Muqaddimah’s reputation has only grown since its author’s death. Arnold Toynbee, the prominent British historian and theorist of civilizational development, famously described it as a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place. The Scottish philosopher and theologian Robert Flint offered comparable praise, and the BBC World Service, in its program The Forum, characterized Ibn Khaldun as a top scholar, a scheming political mastermind, and a peripatetic political guru. The new volume neither simply repeats these eulogies nor adjudicates whether Toynbee’s superlative holds, but its contributors leave little doubt that the text remains one of the most fertile sources of reflection on the birth, development, rise, and decline of societies.

What distinguishes the collection is its insistence that Ibn Khaldun’s ideas function as analytical instruments rather than museum pieces. Mesut Idriz, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Sharjah and co-editor of the volume, identified the central takeaway in remarks to the publishers: Ibn Khaldun’s ideas are not simply historical theories; they can still help us understand how societies work today. His concepts, Idriz explained, describe in accessible terms why people need social bonds and cooperation, how strong communities and states emerge, and how prosperity, leadership, taxation, education, and social cohesion can influence the strength or weakness of a society.

At the technical heart of this framework sit two interlocking concepts. The first is umran, often translated as civilization or human social organization, which Ibn Khaldun treated as an object of systematic study in its own right. The second is asabiyyah, a term rendered in the volume’s discussions as social cohesion or group solidarity, which he identified as the animating force behind political authority and dynastic power. In his model, a strong asabiyyah allows a group to conquer and govern; over generations of luxury and sedentary life, that solidarity erodes, opening the way for new groups with fresher bonds to displace the old. The result is a cyclical theory of dynastic rise and fall that anticipates, in some respects, modern sociological accounts of institutional decay and renewal.

Anja Zalta, Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Ljubljana and lead editor of the volume, emphasized the systemic character of this thought. Ibn Khaldun, she noted, viewed society as an interconnected system rather than as separate political, economic, or social problems, and the studies in the volume show that his thinking can be applied to very different societies and periods, including contemporary contexts. In her formulation, his work reminds us that a successful civilization depends not only on wealth or political power but also on cooperation, social trust, effective institutions, education, and the ability of societies to adapt and renew themselves.

The sixteen chapters supply concrete case studies to support these claims, tracing Ibn Khaldunian themes through polities and communities as varied as the United Arab Emirates, Nasrid Granada, Bosnia, and Sahrawi society, alongside analysis of the United States. Several chapters examine the UAE in particular, showing how the country draws on Ibn Khaldun’s concepts to illuminate questions of tolerance, social integration, institutional development, diversity management, and sustainable governance. The volume’s editors suggest that this practical orientation creates potential interest for government institutions, cultural institutions, policy bodies, and organizations concerned with social development, even though the contributors do not document specific partnerships with industry or commercial organizations.

The breadth of disciplines now engaging with the Muqaddimah is itself a measure of its endurance. The volume notes that the text continues to be cited across management, political science, sociology, history, and economics, more than six hundred years after it was written. Contributors present it as a guide to understanding civilizational change, power, and social cohesion, and they argue that Ibn Khaldun should be viewed not only as a medieval Muslim historian but as an important contributor to the broader history of the social and human sciences. By applying his ideas to both historical and contemporary cases, the volume demonstrates that his intellectual framework can still contribute to discussions about governance, social cohesion, diversity, economic development, and civilizational change.

The editors are careful not to overstate the reach of these applications. The book’s most significant broader engagement, according to Zalta, is with cultural, governmental, and public-policy concerns, connecting Ibn Khaldun’s intellectual legacy with practical questions facing modern societies, from education and economic development to cultural change and social integration. The practical message, as Idriz put it, is that classical intellectual heritage does not have to remain confined to historical study; it can provide useful perspectives for addressing present-day questions of governance, social cohesion, education, cultural change, and development. The concepts highlighted by the contributors can serve as analytical tools for policymakers and institutions thinking critically about community solidarity, leadership, institutional stability, taxation, and the management of social diversity.

The volume also points toward a methodological reorientation in future scholarship. Rather than studying Ibn Khaldun mainly in comparison with later Western thinkers, Zalta argued, future research can examine his intellectual framework on its own terms and bring it into dialogue with contemporary social sciences, encouraging more interdisciplinary and comparative studies and demonstrating how Islamic intellectual heritage can contribute to addressing questions facing societies in the twenty-first century. In that sense, the collection goes beyond an exercise in historical scholarship: it invites both specialists and general readers to reconsider the most pressing questions Ibn Khaldun raised in his Muqaddimah, and to weigh their relevance to a world still grappling with cohesion, legitimacy, and the fragility of civilizations. The book is published under the DOI 10.4312/9789612978822 by the University of Ljubljana Press.

Subject of Research: The enduring relevance of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah to modern social science and philosophy of history

Article Title: Is Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah “the greatest work of its kind” in the field of philosophy of history?

Article References: Is Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah “the greatest work of its kind” in the field of philosophy of history?. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, philosophy of history, asabiyyah, social cohesion, umran, civilizational change, University of Ljubljana, University of Sharjah, governance, Islamic intellectual heritage, sociology