Clean hydrogen fuel is still expensive. Green hydrogen, made by splitting water, costs roughly $5 per kilogram, while hydrogen made from natural gas costs about $1.50, according to Oregon State University. Now chemists there have developed a light-powered material that could help point the way to narrowing that gap.

The material, called BVR-19, uses light to produce hydrogen from water without needing an additional expensive metal catalyst. It is laboratory research rather than a product, but its creators say it offers a new blueprint for designing cheaper solar-fuel materials.

Why hydrogen matters

Hydrogen is widely used in fuel cells for vehicles, and in making ammonia, refining metals and manufacturing plastics.

Most of it today comes from methane-steam reforming, which uses natural gas and releases carbon dioxide. Producing hydrogen by splitting water can be cleaner.

Many existing water-based methods rely on electrocatalysis, which uses electricity to drive the reaction. The environmental benefit depends heavily on where that electricity comes from, and to stay both sustainable and economically competitive, the power must come from low-cost renewable sources, the university says.

What is a catalyst, and what is a photocatalyst?

A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without being permanently changed by it, explained Kyriakos Stylianou of the OSU College of Science, who led the research.

A photocatalyst works in a similar way but is switched on by light. After absorbing light, the material reaches a higher energy state and can use that energy to drive chemical reactions more quickly.

The team's study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society with Emmanuel Nyela Musa as first-listed author, describes a photocatalyst that can produce hydrogen quickly and efficiently, according to the university. Because BVR-19 does not need an extra expensive metal catalyst, Stylianou said, future light-driven hydrogen systems could be simpler to design.

How BVR-19 works

BVR-19 belongs to a family of materials called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs. These are crystalline, porous materials built from positively charged metal ions surrounded by organic molecules known as linkers. Their tiny pores and adjustable structures let scientists fine-tune them for different jobs.

The possibilities are vast. Millions of MOF structures are theoretically possible, Stylianou said. Chemists have already made nearly 100,000, and the properties of roughly another half-million have been predicted.

What sets BVR-19 apart is an unusual bond between two sulfur atoms. When light hits the material, that bond temporarily breaks, producing highly reactive sulfur species.

Rather than leaning mainly on its metal atoms, the team says, the material lets its organic parts take the lead.

“The organic component does the important work,” Stylianou said. “Instead of relying primarily on the metal atoms, our material uses its sulfur-containing organic building blocks to capture light energy and move electrons where they are needed to produce hydrogen. This represents a different way of thinking about how these materials should be designed.”

There is a practical bonus too. BVR-19 forms spontaneously in water at room temperature, which lowers the energy needed to make it.

A blueprint for better materials

The researchers also studied what happens when the metal in the framework is swapped while the rest stays essentially the same. That revealed why some versions work much better than others.

“Our work provides a blueprint for designing better materials that can bring down the cost of green hydrogen,” said Stylianou, who directs OSU's Materials Discovery Laboratory, known as the MaD Lab. “These findings provide new design rules for creating more effective materials for solar fuel production.”

What happens next

It is worth being clear about where this stands. The work is a laboratory study, and it has not closed the cost gap between green and gas-derived hydrogen. The university's account gives no production costs, no output figures at scale and no timeline for use outside the lab.

What the research does offer is new design rules that other chemists can build on. Stylianou said the findings could give researchers another tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change. Turning that promise into affordable hydrogen will take further testing and development.

The study was carried out by members of the MaD Lab together with other Oregon State colleagues, and was supported by the Murdock Charitable Trust, the National Science Foundation and the OSU College of Science.

Source: Oregon State University, via ScienceDaily. Journal reference: Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2026; 148 (37): 40255. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6c13238