Tel Aviv, NFAPost: H2Pro, the Israel based startup, has raised $22 million in funding from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, Japan’s Sumitomo and auto manufacturer Hyundai. H2Pro
The funding will be used to take the company’s tech from laboratory prototyping to the factory floor through the production of commercial-scale electrolysers.
It is interesting to note that H2Pro is also funded in the beginning by crowdfunding platform OurCrowd founded by Jon Medved. The startup became the cynosure of investors as there is a greater demand for decarbonizing industries like steel and cement, helping to lower carbon emissions and to create a more sustainable world.
As the governments and industries are getting serious about their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions hydrogen is becoming an ever increasingly popular choice.
Through the usage of renewable electricity, the process of splitting water into usable hydrogen is being seen as a potential carbon-free fuel source that could overtake our current dependency on coal, oil, and natural gas.
Commenting on the development, H2Pro’s CEO Talmon Marco said the company definitely see a worldwide market for these devices.
“When we started the company back in 2019, it was much more difficult to have a conversation with investors about hydrogen. And today it’s like ‘oh, yeah, absolutely. Hydrogen is happening,” said Talmon Marco.
Till now, green hydrogen has not been widely adopted due to the cost of production
The current process of green hydrogen production involves alkaline electrolysers which use electrical energy to both break apart the hydrogen and oxygen atoms and pair two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms, respectively, to form two separate gases.
Where H2Pro differs is that they break this process down into two separate steps. It first creates hydrogen at an electrolyser’s cathode, which in turn causes a change in the composition of its nickel-based anode.
Then, instead of using electrical power to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, H2Pro’s process involves flooding the cell with “a hot liquid”, thus using thermal energy to release the oxygen gas.
Through this process, H2Pro is projecting that they’ll be able to produce green hydrogen for $1 a kilogram by the second half of the decade.
With their laboratory prototyping, H2Pro has been able to produce approximately 100 grams of green hydrogen a day. Bearing in mind, this is a lab prototype. The company is expecting to produce a larger scale model that will be capable of producing 1 kilo a day. And this, dear readers, is normally where cleantech startups stall out.
