NewHydrogen, a developer of a green hydrogen generator, released a status report describing business milestones and the next steps required to secure long-term commercial viability.
“NewHydrogen has made significant progress towards its goal of developing technologies that lower the cost of producing green hydrogen, accelerating the timeline for large-scale applications in high growth markets,” said Spencer Hall, NewHydrogen’s COO.
NewHydrogen’s sponsored research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) aims to reduce the price of green hydrogen by removing or significantly lowering the use of precious metals in electrolyzers. Currently, electrolyzers rely on scarce elements like iridium and platinum. Typically, these components make for a sizeable amount of the cost of electrolyzers.
Since the launch of its green hydrogen technology initiative in December 2020, NewHydrogen has reached multiple milestones, including but not limited to the following:
- Entering into a funded research agreement with UCLA to create efficient and stable earth-abundant material-based catalysts for electrolysis-based hydrogen production. In addition to oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts were eventually added to the scope of the study.
- Developed an OER catalyst for PEM electrolyzers that does not need iridium and is a considerable improvement. An in-depth examination of the catalytic materials before and after the structural alteration paved the way for future enhancements.
- Developed a HER catalyst for alkaline electrolyzers that consumes one order of magnitude less platinum. The HER kinetics were significantly enhanced by the introduction of a low pH environment at the platinum surface.
- Developed a HER catalyst for anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzers that does not require platinum. In comparison to commercial platinum-based HER catalysts, the single-atom catalyst has consistently demonstrated reduced overpotential and higher mass activity.
- Executed a manufacturing supply agreement with Verde, LLC, a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of cutting-edge green hydrogen generation systems, which will permit the Company to deploy green hydrogen generators at intermittent renewable power sites to demonstrate the economic viability of new technology under development.
The following are a number of NewHydrogen’s primary future objectives:
- Increase the stability of the OER catalyst based on non-precious metals at high current densities.
- Improve the stability of the HER catalyst that requires a factor of ten less platinum.
- Incorporate HER/OER catalysts into a prototype electrolyzer that will serve as a reference prototype to demonstrate NewHydrogen’s catalytic technology to produce green hydrogen at a cheap cost.
- Continue to establish alliances and engage actively in the operations of the green hydrogen industrial consortium.
“While we work to achieve these milestones, we are highly optimistic about bringing NewHydrogen technologies to market in the coming years,” Hall said. “As high-growth industries continue to adopt new and improved electrolyzer technologies, the market opportunity for customer adoption and revenue generation is tremendous for a solution like ours.”
