Spotted: In the construction sector, 98 per cent of all energy comes from diesel, and fossil fuel generators are also commonly used in a range of other settings such as outdoor live events. In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, diesel generators produce air pollutants harmful to human health, as well as disruptive noise. As a result, companies are increasingly looking for alternative methods for powering their sites.
One promising technology for the future of site energy is hydrogen power, and UK startup GeoPura has successfully trialled the technology on two UK infrastructure projects (National Grid’s Viking Link interconnector project and HS2), potentially paving the way for its wider adoption.
Following ten years of research and development, GeoPura has developed its Hydrogen Power Unit (HPU), which combines hydrogen fuel cell technology with battery storage and real-time electrical conversion. The fuel cell splits the hydrogen into protons and electrons, which creates an electrical current that charges the batteries. The batteries, in turn, provide power to the site for applications such as electric vehicle charging, heating, and hot water. The HPUs are housed in a 20-foot portable shipping container, and it generally only takes a few hours to set up the system. The hydrogen fuel is delivered by HGVs.
Hydrogen is attractive as a fuel because it only emits water vapour at the point of use. If the hydrogen is produced sustainably, the whole system is carbon-free. GeoPura produces its own green hydrogen by using electricity from renewable sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. It then tops up its own supply with hydrogen purchased from natural gas producers (which is not emissions-free).
Springwise has spotted various ways that sites could produce and store their own green power, including using volcanic rock cells and spent electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element on Earth and has been identified as an important clean fuel for the energy transition, emitting only water when burned instead of carbon dioxide. However, producing hydrogen can be carbon intensive, and storing and transporting it is a challenge due to the extremely low temperatures and high pressure needed to keep it stable.
For it to be a feasible alternative to fossil fuels, new methods for storage and transportation are required. Enter Nium, a spinout company from Cambridge University in the UK, which is pioneering a ground-breaking process for getting hydrogen from A to B using ‘green’ ammonia.
Turning hydrogen into ammonia – which is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen from the air – makes it much easier to move around. Nium uses nano catalysis, powered by renewable energy, which achieves this conversion at significantly reduced temperatures and pressures compared to the Haber-Bosch process – the way that ammonia has been produced for nearly 100 years. When the ammonia reaches its destination, the decentralised nature of Nium’s system means it is easy to turn it back into hydrogen using the same green process.
Green hydrogen provides a way to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as transportation by truck or train, or heavy industry. Green ammonia, meanwhile, replaces ammonia produced through the traditional polluting process, which emits around 500mt of CO2 annually. And, in addition to being a means of transporting hydrogen, ammonia itself can be used in new applications such as shipping fuel, and it remains a key ingredient in fertilizers, which around 50 per cent of the world’s food production relies upon.
Nium’s new process is turning ammonia into a tool for the future, while cleaning up its use in the present.
Spotted: Hydrogen is often touted as a green technology, but although it produces only water when consumed in a fuel cell, the hydrogen itself is generally produced using fossil fuels. Green hydrogen, or hydrogen produced using carbon-free electricity, is a path to decarbonising global hydrogen supplies, but it is generally too expensive today to be adopted at scale.
That may be about to change, however, with a new type of hydrogen electrolyser developed by Advanced Ionics. Ted Dillon, Advanced Ionics’ Interim Vice President of Marketing told Springwise that the company’s technology reduces the electricity required from around 51 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per kilogramme of hydrogen to just 35 kWh of electricity per kilogramme of hydrogen produced.
Importantly, the technology does not require any rare or expensive metals or ceramics, which are common in other electrolysers. The company’s Symbiotic Electrolysers use process or waste heat to generate steam for powering electrolysis. By tapping into excess heat that is already available in industrial settings, they are able to lower the amount of electricity used for the process.
Advanced Ionics has recently closed a $12.5 million (around €11.6 million) series A financing led by BP ventures, with additional investors including Clean Energy Ventures, GVP Climate, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Dillion confirmed that the funding will be used to, “expand our team, our facilities, and our work on demonstration projects with future customers.”
The drive to adopt hydrogen for use as a power provider has been picking up steam. Springwise has spotted this in a number of recent innovations in the archive, including technology that produces green hydrogen from bio-waste and a hydrogen-powered data centre.
Spotted: Hydrogen is a promising fuel for a future decarbonised economy, but, currently, more than 99 per cent of the hydrogen produced globally comes from fossil fuels. Green hydrogen, which is produced by running a renewable electric current through water, is a leading alternative to fossil-derived hydrogen, but it comes with its own set of challenges, such as the high cost and energy demand of the electrolysers used to produce it. This has led innovators to look for further clean sources of hydrogen to supplement the nascent green hydrogen industry.
This is where US startup Koloma comes in. The company aims to extract naturally occurring hydrogen from iron-rich rocks, taking advantage of a natural process called serpentinization. During this process, groundwater reacts with iron in the Earth’s crust to create pure hydrogen in a reaction that goes on continuously, replenishing the gas at a rate of 23 megatonnes per year – which is equivalent to around 30 per cent of the world’s hydrogen demand.
Once geologic hydrogen is formed, there are several natural mechanisms by which it can become trapped to form reservoirs that can be tapped through drilling wells. Koloma is currently exploring its first test wells in the American Midwest (their precise locations are kept secret), which is yielding samples that are being analysed for volume and purity. The company’s founder, Dr. Tom Darrah, a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, has secured multiple patents for hydrogen extraction technologies.
The hydrogen Koloma hopes to extract promises several benefits over hydrogen produced using existing methods. According to data shared by the company, the carbon intensity of geologic hydrogen is only marginally greater than green hydrogen produced using renewable energy – the current gold standard for clean hydrogen. However, it also requires almost no external water and very little external energy as inputs, which sets it apart from all other hydrogen production methods, including green hydrogen. It also does not rely on large-scale wind turbines or solar farms, which take up a significant amount of land.
The promise of geologic hydrogen has captured the attention of several startups, but Koloma has just received $91 million of funding from the Bill Gates Foundation, meaning it is well-placed to expand its capabilities and the production of geologic hydrogen a commercial reality.
Springwise has covered several alternative sources of clean hydrogen including a company that is producing Green Hydrogen from biowaste and a process for making hydrogen and carbon black without combustion.
Spotted: Hydrogen has long been touted as a clean fuel for the future. And the International Energy Agency forecasts that global hydrogen demand could reach 115 megatonnes by 2030, although this falls short of the 130 megatonnes needed by the same deadline to meet existing climate targets.
Hydrogen is promising as a fuel because it does not emit CO2 at point-of-use and has a broad range of existing and potential applications – from the power sector to transport and more. However, the way in which the element is produced determines whether or not it is a truly clean fuel.
Today, almost all the hydrogen we use is created from fossil fuels, which means that its production generates significant amounts of CO2. ‘Green hydrogen’ is an often-discussed alternative to fossil-derived hydrogen. It is produced by running an electric current through water to break the bond between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. If this current is produced from a renewable source, then the entire process is emissions-free. Although very promising, green hydrogen has its own limitations, such as the current high cost of electrolysers needed for its production.
Now, however, US startup Monolith, has developed a new clean way of producing hydrogen. Using a process called methane pyrolysis, the company heats up traditional or renewable natural gas or biogas with renewable electricity. This process heats the gas but does not combust it, which means no CO2 is released. Instead, the bonds between the hydrogen and carbon atoms in the gas are broken, and the two elements are collected separately.
Although Monolith’s process still results in a small amount of greenhouse gas emissions for each kilogramme of hydrogen produced, these are much lower than those produced by traditional fossil-derived hydrogen processes (at 0.45 kilogrammes of CO2 equivalent per kilogramme of hydrogen, compared to 11.3 for steam methane reforming). Moreover, the company claims that the process could be made carbon negative if renewable natural gas is used as feedstock.
The key benefit of Monolith’s technology is that it is more affordable than green hydrogen production and uses seven times less energy than is required to produce hydrogen with electrolysers. The leftover carbon from methane pyrolysis can also be used to produce carbon black, a material that is used in tyres and rubber products and as an ink, black paint, or dye. This carbon black is normally produced in very carbon-intensive ways, so its recovery from Monolith’s process offers a more sustainable alternative.
As hydrogen becomes more important for the energy transition, Springwise has spotted several innovators in the archive working on its clean production, including a company producing next-generation electrolysers, researchers making hydrogen from thin air, and oil-eating bacteria that produce hydrogen from spent oil and gas wells.
Benjamin Hubert’s studio Layer has worked with US start-up Croft to design a system of products for retrofitting vehicles to run on green hydrogen.
The Nanoplant and Nanocartridges are the first prototypes from Croft, which is currently raising funds for the project, and enable users to produce their own solid-state hydrogen to power cars, trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles.
With an appearance similar to a large home battery, the Nanoplant uses electricity and water from the mains supply to carry out electrolysis — the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The Croft system features a Nanoplant and cartridges for powering retrofitted vehicles with hydrogen
The hydrogen obtained in this process is known as “green hydrogen” because, if it is produced using renewable energy, it creates no greenhouse gas emissions. This is in contrast to “blue hydrogen”, which is produced from natural gas and creates some emissions.
The Nanoplant contains a pull-out drawer with room for four Nanocartridges, which store the hydrogen by sticking it to the surface of a proprietary particulate. According to the brand, this method stores the hydrogen densely and at low pressure, making it a safe solution that also gives more power and range than electric batteries.
According to Layer, Croft is “dedicated to creating a blueprint for an enduring, scalable, green-hydrogen economy” and offers its technology at a much lower cost than other hydrogen storage solutions on or near the market.
The Nanoplant produces hydrogen by splitting it from water through electrolysis
The studio says the product is best suited for larger vehicles in environments with little fast-charging infrastructure, and that heavy-duty pick-up trucks for farming, forestry, construction and other industries are the first target.
“Batteries are great to decarbonise smaller passenger vehicles that get used in gentle, predictable ways with access to good charging infrastructure,” Hubert told Dezeen.
“However, lots of mobility applications don’t match that description, and there, we need a power source that is denser than batteries and has fewer dependencies on infrastructure,” he added.
“Hydrogen stores significantly more energy in less space and with less weight than batteries, and it’s much easier to use hydrogen in environments with weak grids or where charging otherwise isn’t available.”
The technology is said to be best for heavy-duty vehicles like pick-up trucks
Hubert said that, at least in the short term, hydrogen would be a complement to electric vehicle technology, not a competitor.
“It’s a great complementary solution to batteries, and as with all things, it’s important to pick the right tool for the right job,” he continued.
To retrofit a vehicle with the technology, Croft removes most of the components of the power train and replaces them with its hydrogen storage system, a fuel cell, electric motors and other components, while reprogramming the vehicle’s onboard computer to utilise them.
Layer led the design and engineering of the Nanoplant and Nanocartridges, endeavouring to make them straightforward and easy to understand while also giving them an aesthetic that would communicate robustness and technological prowess.
The Nanocartridges store hydrogen in a solid state and at low pressure
The Nanoplant is modular and infinitely expandable — additional Nanoplant modules can be connected horizontally, each with the capacity for four Nanocartridges.
Each module has a minimal user interface on its front that counts down the time left to complete the recharge, and there is also a hose module for on-board charging. The drawer containing Nanocartridges can also double as a cart for transporting them to the vehicle.
The Nanocartridges weigh 14 to 16 kilograms and have four side handles, creating a cubic frame that can be easily gripped and stacked. A circular indicator on the top surface shows the cartridge’s remaining hydrogen capacity.
The system includes a hose for on-board charging
According to Layer, each cartridge has a range of 20 to 80 miles depending on the size of the vehicle and how hard it works.
“In addition to rapid fueling, cartridges also allow operators to carry additional fuel with them or receive rescue fuel if an asset gets stranded in the field, two features that today’s battery vehicles lack,” said Hubert.
In addition to its product design work, Layer created the brand identity for Croft, including the brandmark and packaging.
Layer also designed the brand identity and packaging for Croft
The brandmark is based on an abstracted letter “H”, which has been stylised to also look like a road vanishing into the distance. It will be used in many ways, including debossed into products, applied as a micro-pattern to create texture, and as a call to action on interaction points.
Layer has been embracing emerging technologies, and has recently also worked on the Ledger Stax hardware wallet for storing cryptocurrency and the Viture One video streaming glasses.
Spotted: Hydrogen is growing in popularity as a clean alternative to methane. While methane is a fossil fuel, it is possible to generate hydrogen using renewable energy – what is called green hydrogen. This alternative fuel is produced through electrolysis, which uses electricity to split water molecules to generate pure hydrogen, with no harmful by-products. However, today, most hydrogen is produced using steam methane reformation, which requires fossil fuels and produces carbon monoxide as a by-product.
One reason why green hydrogen is not more common is that electrolysis is less efficient because it produces bubbles. But that may be about to change. Assistant Professor Pourya Forooghi from Aarhus University has begun a study that hopes to shed light on the physics behind the bubble formation.
The project, called Heat and Bubble Transport over Complex Solid Surfaces, will run for five years. The goal is to develop reliable modelling tools that can be used to reduce excessive bubble formation in electrolysis, as well as in other technical situations in which bubbles cause problems – such as chemical reactions and drag on ship’s hulls.
The use of hydrogen is ramping up, and Springwise has spotted frequent developments in the field. Recent innovations include the production of hydrogen fuel out of thin air, and a method for vastly increasing the storage capacity of hydrogen.
Spotted: Our reliance on unclean energy sources has catapulted our planet out of stability and into an era of change. Across the globe, fossil fuel usage accounts for 65 per cent of the carbon emissions. But, as the French startup INOCEL aims to prove with its new high-performance hydrogen fuel cell, we can transition our fossil-fuel dependence onto cleaner energy sources.
INOCEL’s very high-power PEMFC, or proton-exchange membrane fuel cell, betters the competition in a few ways. First and foremost, it is three times more powerful than others its size on the market. On top of that, the company claims the product has an energy efficiency level of 60 per cent and a durability performance that makes operating costs more attractive. Finally, its battery size and volume are smaller than other PEMFC fuel cells.
By focusing its applications on fuelling marine, ground transportation, high-performance cars, and stationary applications, INOCEL’s technology will hopefully enable the startup to have a visible impact on a scalable level.
The company will make its unrivalled hydrogen fuel cell available in a 300-kW format in 2024.
Springwise has previously spotted other innovations aimed at making hydrogen power a more accessible energy source, including a startup that’s developed a way to increase the storage capacity of hydrogen, and a system that produces hydrogen on-site to avoid transportation and storage challenges.
Spotted: Increasingly, green hydrogen is touted as a crucial element in the world’s journey to carbon zero. UK startup and underground energy storage specialist, Gravitricity, is completing its design of purpose-built underground lined rock shafts which would enable efficient underground hydrogen storage.
Gravitricity believes its storage technology, which it calls FlexiStore, is a ‘Goldilocks’ solution to the obstacles facing hydrogen storage. Unlike above-ground hydrogen storage alternatives, FlexiStore provides a much bigger and more secure system. It is also more flexible than subterranean salt caverns – another commonly suggested method of underground storage.
One FlexiStore could store the green hydrogen generated by an offshore wind farm, but this would fill up daily and would need to be emptied regularly. To make the process more efficient, multiple stores could be constructed so that large amounts of wind energy that would otherwise go to waste could be soaked up. And unlike salt cavern storage, which naturally requires specific geological environments, Gravitricity’s stores can be built wherever they are needed.
Gravitricity has already identified many sites for its UK pilot project and is discussing the project and future commercial schemes with site owners. The company recently completed a £300,000 (around €341,000) feasibility study, which showed it is technically and commercially viable to store large amounts of compressed hydrogen with the Flexistore technology.
Springwise has spotted other innovations aimed at storing hydrogen. HydroSolid developed a way to store and transport large amounts of hydrogen at low pressures using a new nanomaterial, and EPRO found a way to transport green hydrogen in powder form.
Spotted: Hydrogen is one oft-touted ‘green’ alternative to fossil fuels. Yet in order to produce green hydrogen, solid oxide and alkaline electrolysers are needed to increase the efficiency of water hydrolysis (splitting H2O into oxygen and hydrogen). While solid electrolysers use common materials such as Nickel or Zirconia, the more eco-friendly proton-exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers use Iridium and Platinum. These are not only expensive, but also relatively scarce.
Naco Technologies, however, has now developed a way to reduce the materials needed to produce PEM electrolysers. The company has created a magnetron that can ‘sputter’ precious metals onto a surface using ‘targets’ as small as one inch in diameter and 0.5 mm thick. The process enables the creation of composite nano-coatings for use as PEM catalysts at a lower cost than previously possible.
Naco’s technology can also be used to decrease erosion, therefore increasing the efficiency of the coated material. According to the company, its solution uses 10 times fewer raw materials to create an electrolyser, decreasing costs by 30 to 50 per cent. Equipment based on the Naco designed magnetron system is also more compact and productive when compared to similar competitive solutions.
Naco recently received €1.5 million in a seed round of funding led by Untitled Ventures, with participation from Buildit Accelerator and others. Oskar Stachowiak, managing partner at Untitled Ventures explains that, “As the world looks to move towards a low-carbon future, hydrogen is now seeing increasing interest from companies and governments alike. Naco is an incredible example of a startup company that has a unique deeptech solution for a growing industry.”
Springwise has spotted an increasing number of innovations to aid in the production of green hydrogen, including hi-tech yachts that serve as mobile hydrogen plants and oil-eating microbes which produce ‘gold’ hydrogen.
