The scientists, led by Professor Leone Spiccia, Robin Brimblecombe and Annette Koo of Monash University, developed a system they say might revolutionize the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale.

"We have copied nature, taking the elements and mechanisms found in plant life that have evolved over 3 billion years and recreated one of those processes in the laboratory," Spiccia said. Although scientists have been able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for years, "we have been able to do the same thing for the first time using just sunlight, an electrical potential of 1.2 volts and the very chemical that nature has selected for this purpose."

The research that included Gerhard Swiegers of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and Professor Charles Dismukes of Princeton University appears in the journal Angewandte Chemie.