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Hydrogen might be bluster as a fuel of the time to come that stand quick to decarbonize cargo ships and industry , but for the90 million metric tonsused today in everything from fertiliser product to chemical manufacturing,96%is derived flat from natural gas , crude , or ember . For example , one of the most common way is through steam Protestant Reformation of methane , which essentially cooks methane so the hydrogen descend off , releasing carbon dioxide in the physical process .
Hardly the clobber of a mood - friendly future .
That means there ’s plenty of room for party trying to make the production of atomic number 1 sleazy . “ There ’s over $ 100 billion spent today on hydrogen in industrial app , ” sound out Molly Yang , conscientious objector - founding father and chief executive officer ofHgen .
Yang and her co - founder Colin Ho founded Hgen three years ago after stretch at Tesla and SpaceX , respectively . Their destination was to modularize electrolyzers , the chemistry kit adequate to of cranking out green hydrogen by break open water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen . Electrolysis is n’t perfectly clean — it still requires electricity , which today is generated from a mixing of renewables and dodo fuel , but as the power system gets clean , the output of hydrogen through electrolysis bugger off fresh as well .
That vision earned thema $ 2 million seed roundin 2022 lead by Founders Fund , and induction into that year ’s Breakthrough Energy Fellows cohort . Now , Hgen is back with another $ 5 million funding round from Seven Seven Six with participation from Fontinalis Partners and Founders Fund , the company exclusively told TechCrunch .
Part of Hgen ’s initial auction pitch was that we have all the electrolyzer engineering we need today , but it ’s not sufficiently optimized . “ We are n’t a material R&D ship’s company , ” Yang tell TechCrunch . alternatively , the squad focalise on optimizing the intact widget , from the electrolyzer ’s electrodes to the tangle of pipes and pump that support them .
Hgen is using alkaline electrolyzers , an old and proven technology that typically deal some of the efficiency gains of newer approaches in favor of lower costs . But Yang claimed that Hgen has discover a mode to shrivel up the electrolyzer twenty - fold , reducing material and manufacturing costs . “ Even with first builds , we ’re coming out at a much depleted cost , ” she said .
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In an electrolyzer , the magic find at the interface between the electrode and the liquidity . The electrode conduct electricity into the liquid and facilitate the chemical reaction that break enter the bonds between atomic number 1 and oxygen . When that happens , bubbles of hydrogen gas on one side of the electrolyzer and oxygen accelerator on the other form on the electrode and eventually trickle up to the surface .
But those bubble also tend to overstay their welcome . “ That jam the electrodes from being reactive and being able to mold new atomic number 1 , ” Yang said . So Hgen tweak the electrode design to encourage atomic number 1 and oxygen bubbles to give earlier . That means that Hgen ’s electrolyzer push-down stack can be smaller and produce the same amount of hydrogen . A littler stack uses few materials and occupy up less space , further cutting price . “ Our cell design basically allows for this virtuous round , ” she say .
Yang say that Hgen is going to package the entire matter into a 40 - foot shipping container that can be delivered to a site and hooked up with minimum labor — “ just water and electrical inputs , ” she articulate .
The startup is initially targeting companies that currently get hydrogen deliver in a liquified form , which Yang said can be well over $ 10 per kilogram . “ Being able to forfend all of that liquefaction , all of that truck deliverance , is just a more likeable monetary value proffer for them , ” she said . “ And also a more static , unattackable supply for them . ”
