Topics
Latest
AI
Amazon
Image Credits:Teka77 / Getty Images
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Image Credits:Teka77 / Getty Images
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
fundraise
Gadgets
Gaming
Government & Policy
Hardware
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
security department
Social
blank space
inauguration
TikTok
Transportation
speculation
More from TechCrunch
issue
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Podcasts
video
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
The path to starting a commercial enterprise is sometimes obvious , even if the founder does n’t always realise it .
That ’s certainly true for Jimmy Rojas , who select the first step toward launch his startup Evoloh three years earlier as a graduate student at Stanfordworking on hydrogen and energy scheme . It continued when he figure out at Baruch Future Ventures analyzing potential deals .
“ I was always looking at hydrogen deals , ” Rojas assure TechCrunch . “ I think back those guys joking that I was a direful investor because I choke on every single deal because I found issues with every unmarried company out there . By the end , we were like , it ’s better if I just start my own . ”
Hydrogen is already a cardinal ingredient for many chemical substance producer , and startups and investors alike are depend it can assist eliminate carbon defilement in everything from steel and cementum to aviation and tenacious - draw trucking . Thanks to his experience , Rojas felt he had a good sense for where atomic number 1 ’s problem resided . To him , the biggest was in manufacture the electrolyzers that make hydrogen gas .
“ Electrolyzers are very expensive . They are really toilsome to acquire , logistically complicated , very hard to transport and install , and they are often entangled in politically and environmentally problematical provision Sir Ernst Boris Chain , ” he said .
Rojas ’s ship’s company , Evoloh , is attempting to solve all of those at once by focusing not on novel material , as is often the instance with atomic number 1 startup , but on manufacture . In the process , he hopes to make H a key part of the world ’s energy organization .
“ Clean , cheap H could be a program on which completely novel industries can be educate in the hereafter , ” Rojas said .
Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
Many companies spend a lot of time make a specialized tissue layer , one of the primal components that allows atomic number 1 to be separated from water . But if H becomes a sufficiently expectant marketplace , Rojas suspects that electrolyzers will promptly be commoditized . Even today , tissue layer development has become a act of an arms race : “ Someone will always have a better one , ” he said .
Evoloh does make electrolyzers of its own design based on alkaline electrolysis . In an alkaline electrolyzer , two electrodes are submerged in a result of alkaline piddle ( usually consisting of a high concentration of K or sodium hydroxide ) . As electricity feed through the alkaline water , it splits body of water on one side into atomic number 1 flatulency and hydroxide and mix hydroxide on the other into water and oxygen .
alkalic electrolysis differ from the other primary attack , proton - commutation membrane electrolysis , in a few way . One of the most significant , though , is that alkaline electrolysis does n’t require expensive exotic metal like platinum . That gives alkaline electrolyzers a monetary value advantage from the commencement , one that Evoloh says it builds on with its crushed - cost manufacturing .
Evoloh also designed its electrolyzer stack , the core of the organization , around cheap , domestically sourced materials and components . “ We move to the superpower supply companies , and we asked them for the cheap , most readily uncommitted power supplying that you have . We did it with every other component , the pumps , the heat exchangers , every single thing , ” Rojas said .
To further trim manufacturing costs , Evoloh uses roll - to - roll impression , a proficiency pioneered centuries ago by print presses and more of late used in battery manufacture . Both electrode and membranes , the two main components of an electrolyzer , can be made using roll - to - bowl equipment . As they number off the demarcation , they ’re cut to size and assembled into the final Cartesian product .
The result is a compact and effective electrolyzer that will be light to transport and install , he said . The goal , Rojas said , is to “ be prepared for this scenario in which [ electrolyzer ] batch can become a hardware trade good . ”
Evoloh is still work out the kink in its manufacturing process , though Rojas expect that the company ’s first mill will be up and run by the end of next twelvemonth . When it ’s at full content , it ’ll be able to grow 3.75 gigawatts of electrolyzers using domestic materials , he said . That ’s a meaning amount , hold that the world had just 11 gigawatts of manufacturing mental ability in 2022 , according to theIEA .
The company is positioning itself as something blood-related to TSMC , the contract semiconductor producer that makes chips for technical school companies around the world . It ’s a model that has worked out extraordinarily well for TSMC , though the company ’s success is due in part because the globular semiconductor market is so with child . Evoloh ’s success is similarly dependent on just how big the market for hydrogen becomes . If it remain relatively small , the startup could find some limited succeeder . But if hydrogen becomes a cornerstone of several industries , then Evoloh ’s stakes on manufacturing will pay off handsomely .
