A sulfur-based material split water into hydrogen using light and no additional expensive metal catalyst

BVR-19, a crystalline material built around a sulfide-to-sulfide bond that breaks when light hits it, produces hydrogen from water in Oregon State University laboratory tests without a separately added expensive metal catalyst. Kyriakos Stylianou, who directs the Materials Discovery Laboratory in the university’s College of Science, and a team of Oregon State researchers described it in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, volume 148, issue 37, in 2026.

The result is a materials-chemistry advance, not a hydrogen plant. The university’s account gives no production rate, no efficiency figure and no durability test, and it frames the work as a design blueprint for cheaper green hydrogen rather than a finished process.

A sulfide bond that light cuts

BVR-19 belongs to the metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs: structures made of positively charged metal ions held apart by organic linker molecules, which leave nanosized pores through the crystal. In Oregon State’s release dated September 28, 2026, the team says BVR-19 has an unusual bond between two sulfur atoms that cleaves on exposure to light and creates reactive sulfur species.

Stylianou said the framework “uses its sulfur-containing organic building blocks to capture light energy and move electrons where they are needed to produce hydrogen.” In most light-driven hydrogen systems a precious or otherwise costly metal does that job. Here the organic part of the material does the light capture, and the release states that “no additional expensive metal catalyst is required.” The release defines a catalyst as a substance that increases the rate of a reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change, and says that producing hydrogen by splitting water through a catalytic process is cleaner than the conventional method.

Metal ions still sit inside the framework

The wording matters, because the material is not metal-free. A MOF by definition contains metal ions, and the team varied them. Stylianou said that by changing the metal while keeping the rest of the material essentially the same, the group worked out why some versions of the framework perform much better than others. The release does not name the metals used in BVR-19, so whether any of them counts as a precious metal cannot be settled from the published account.

Oregon State’s earlier route to hydrogen shows the contrast. A 2024 Oregon State photocatalyst from the same laboratory, called RTTA, was described as MOF-derived ruthenium oxide and titanium oxide doped with sulfur and nitrogen; ruthenium is a platinum-group metal. The new material takes a different path, using sulfur chemistry in the organic linkers for the light-driven step, which is the distinction the university draws when it says no additional expensive metal catalyst is needed.

The material forms spontaneously in water at room temperature, which the release ties to lower synthesis costs, and its structure can be adjusted by swapping the metal component without changing the rest of the framework, a feature that let the team compare variants side by side. The paper’s co-authors include Emmanuel Musa, Dylan Pyle and Jacob Lessard, with nine further Oregon State researchers, and funding came from the Murdock Charitable Trust, the National Science Foundation and the College of Science.

The cost gap in green hydrogen

Oregon State frames the motivation in dollars: methane-steam reforming makes hydrogen at about $1.50 per kilogram, while green hydrogen costs about $5 per kilogram. Reforming also releases carbon dioxide, which is the reason the university gives for pursuing the light-driven route, and the release says splitting water this way is cleaner than the conventional method. Stylianou called the work “a blueprint for designing better materials that can bring down the cost of green hydrogen.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Shot sets the benchmark the sector is chasing, $1 per kilogram within a decade, and says hydrogen from renewable energy currently costs about $5 per kilogram. The Oregon State team’s argument is that a cheaper, tunable photocatalyst removes one line from that cost stack.

The Department of Energy’s page on photoelectrochemical water splitting calls that route “a long-term technology pathway” and says continued improvements in efficiency, durability and cost are still needed for market viability.

The department lists three open problems and its stated remedies for each. Efficiencies are being improved through enhanced sunlight absorption and better surface catalysis. Durability and lifetime are being improved with more rugged materials and protective surface coatings. Production costs are being lowered through reduced materials and materials-processing costs. A framework whose light-capturing part is made of inexpensive sulfur-bearing organic linkers speaks to the third item, while the paper’s tests would have to speak to the first two.

The number that will decide whether BVR-19 matters is its hydrogen output per hour per gram under realistic light, with the framework’s lifespan alongside it. The journal article at DOI 10.1021/jacs.6c13238 is the record that would carry those figures; a repost on October 4 of the university’s account does not.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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