The Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) said on Thursday that Israeli researchers have invented a new technology for producing hydrogen from water quickly and cheaply.

While hydrogen is a clean and sustainable fuel, electrolysis requires a high electric potential, high pH levels, and expensive metal catalysts to produce it efficiently.

Technion researchers stated they devised a rapid system that uses readily available copper catalysts in a report published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

This is a system where the catalyst is soluble in water and all of the system’s components are in the same medium.

Copper ions, a tiny molecule that binds the copper and keeps it stable, and a substance called borate that keeps the pH in a narrow range are all part of the system.

According to the researchers, the stable system oxidizes water into hydrogen and oxygen under the same required conditions of low electric potential, high pH near nine, and affordable catalysts.