Chemist turns ocean water into an abundant, low-cost source of hydrogen

Hydrogen is often called a clean fuel of the future, but most of it today is made from natural gas in large plants that emit significant carbon, and water-splitting alternatives have struggled with cost and durability. On April 23, 2026, the University of Alberta highlighted a step toward changing that: chemist Steve Bergens has developed an electrolyzer that can produce hydrogen efficiently from water, including seawater.

An electrolyzer uses electricity and two electrodes to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. A long-standing weak point has been the oxygen-evolution side of the reaction, where the anode degrades and drives up both cost and electricity use. Bergens' team developed a conductive adhesive made from low-cost materials that stabilizes the electrode while dramatically accelerating the water-splitting process and reducing the energy required. The technology has been licensed by Canadian company Cipher Neutron, whose chief scientific officer Ranny Dhillon said the oxygen-evolution reaction "has been a major challenge in electrolysis," and that the new approach "directly addresses that challenge."

“On April 23, 2026, the University of Alberta highlighted a step toward changing that: chemist Steve Bergens has developed an electrolyzer that can produce hydrogen efficiently from water, including seawater.”

The reason for optimism is scale and reach. "Ninety-five percent of the water on the planet is seawater," Bergens said. "We want to make it easy so anybody can make hydrogen from seawater." Because the system can run on renewable electricity, it could let remote coastal communities and heavy industries produce clean hydrogen on site, instead of depending on centralized fossil-fueled plants. "Hydrogen is everywhere, now. It is the lifeblood of the economy," Bergens added.

The honest caveats apply. Licensing and laboratory results are promising, but commercial electrolyzers must prove durability and competitive cost over years of real operation, and seawater's salts and impurities pose engineering challenges that pilot systems will need to handle reliably. Building out hydrogen infrastructure also takes time and investment. Even so, a cheaper, more durable way to pull hydrogen from the most abundant water on Earth is exactly the kind of advance the clean-energy transition needs. If it scales, seawater electrolysis could help decarbonize industries that are otherwise hard to clean up, using a resource that surrounds much of the world.