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For all its hope as a climate - favorable fuel , H has n’t had much luck . It lose the battle over personal transportation to barrage electrical vehicles , and for industrial users , it remains far more expensive than natural gas .
That ’s in part because natural gas can flow through sprawling mesh of pipelines . Hydrogendoesn’t , which means buyers either have to rely on fossil - derived hydrogen ( and its associated pollution ) or truck it in at great expense .
Like many hydrogen entrepreneur , Gabriel Rodriguez - Calero figure the best way to rein in cost is to bring production closer to where it ’s being used . His inauguration , Ecolectro , is making atomic number 1 - producing electrolyzers that fit inside a merchant marine container .
“ We are very concerned in compute out who ’s trucking in atomic number 1 today , ” he separate TechCrunch . By making the gas on website , “ you ’re mitigate a wad of risk around logistics of transportation , logistics of storage at the site . ”
But storage is just one problem that green hydrogen is front . Simply making the poppycock is n’t cheap , either . Some electrolyzers are made with expensive material , while others using one C - old technology are n’t very effective . More recently , though , scientists have been explore ways of making cheap electrolyzers more effective .
Rodriguez - Calero was one of them . After studying battery - bear on engineering science while father his doctorate from Cornell University , he and Kristina Hugar co - founded Ecolectro . Typically , electrolyzers follow one of two approaches : proton - exchange membrane ( PEM ) or alkaline electrolysis . The former tends to be pricier but more effective , while the latter is less efficient but flashy . Ecolectro adopts features of each by build a membrane that can withstand the harsher conditions of alkaline electrolysis .
Most membranes used in PEM electrolysis consist of PFAS compounds , which have number under examination for their pertinacity in the surroundings . Ecolectro ’s ascertain a room to vamoose the PFAS . It also uses nickel as a catalyst rather of Ir or platinum , which are often used in PEM electrolyzers . “ you may employ 1,000 time the Ni per amount of iridium you might use and still not change the price , ” Rodriguez - Calero enjoin .
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The startup has built a small 10 - kilowatt electrolyzer capable of producing 5 kilograms of H per twenty-four hours . It ’s currently being tested by Liberty Utilities in Upstate New York , where the service program is meld hydrogen into the rude gas it spread . Ecolectro is in the process of build its first commercial-grade scale electrolyzer , a 250 - kW modeling that can pump out 125 kg per day . Rodriguez - Calero said the bigger rendering will be usable in the first quarter of next year .
That ’s minor than many electrolyzer project , which tend to be measured in megawatts . But Rodriguez - Calero thinks Ecolectro ’s smaller , modular electrolyzes will help wary customers jump on board . “ That size is very attractive for the mass who order one truck of H per week , ” he allege .
Lisa Coca , partner at Toyota Ventures , thinksthat Ecolectro has a shaft at producing H for $ 1.35 per kilogram by the death of the decade . That ’s close to the Department of Energy’sgoalof $ 1 per kilogram .
To help tally its objective , Ecolectro raised a $ 10.5 million Series A led by the Toyota Ventures climate stock with involvement from Cornell University , New Climate Ventures , Starshot Capital , and Techstars .
