ENERGY
The startup company Hysata wants to cut the price of green hydrogen with a new type of electrolyser – which is fed with capillary power. Now production is being scaled up.
Green hydrogen – i.e. hydrogen produced in electrolysers powered by green electricity – is seen as an important piece of the puzzle in the climate challenge. But the efficiency is often pointed out as an Achilles' heel for the electrolyzers that split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Australian Hysata claims to solve the problem with a completely new type of electrolyser which raises the efficiency to 95 percent. According to the company, only 41.5 kWh of electrical energy is needed to produce one kilogram of hydrogen. That is significantly less than the 50-55 kWh required in today's commercial alkaline and PEM electrolyzers. The new technology is also said to have lower production and operating costs.
The result will be the cheapest green hydrogen in the world, the company claims.
– Our goal is to accelerate the shift from fossil fuels by delivering the world's most efficient, simple and reliable electrolyser, says the company's CEO Paul Berret in a Youtube clip.
Pop the bubbles
The innovation is called CFE, Capillary-fed electrolysis, and has its roots at the Australian UOW, University of Wollongong. There, a research group has figured out a way to avoid the bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen that form in the electrolyte liquid in classic electrolysers.
These bubbles are a scourge in several ways. They have a tendency to stick to the electrodes and inhibit gas production. The bubbles also cause the electrical resistance in the electrolysis cell to increase, which gives rise to heat losses and reduced efficiency.
The Australian researchers' trick is to completely sonically remove the electrolyte liquid from the electrodes. The liquid is instead stored in a reservoir at the bottom of the cell. From there, it is absorbed by capillary action into a porous membrane that separates the anode and cathode.
The method has been presented in it scientific journal Nature. There, the researchers write that in cells in the lab they have measured the efficiency to a whopping 98 percent.
Hysata took in at the beginning of May just over 111 million dollars to expand production capacity at its Wollongong factory and to further develop the technology.
Ny Teknik has previously written about a research group in Australia that has a different method to prevent water and oxygen bubbles from sticking to the electrodes. The researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne use high-frequency sound waves to sharpen hydrogen production.