An Australian company called Hystata has announced that it has discovered a way to produce hydrogen through electrolysis at 98 per cent cell efficiency.
The company’s press release is here:
The CEO of Hystata, Paul Barrett states:
“Our electrolyser will deliver the world’s lowest hydrogen cost, save hydrogen producers billions of dollars in electricity costs, and enable green hydrogen to outcompete fossil fuel-derived hydrogen.
“Our technology will enable hydrogen production of below US$1.50/kg per kilogram by the mid-2020s, meeting Australian and global cost targets much earlier than generally expected. This is critical to making green hydrogen commercially viable and decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors.
“Hysata has some of Australia’s brightest minds working together to position Australia as a leading manufacturer and exporter of electrolysers, with plans underway to build a pilot electrolyser manufacturing plant and employ dozens of new highly skilled specialists in 2022.
“Green hydrogen is forecast to be a trillion-dollar industry with the backbone of this industry being the electrolyser. Given the urgency to reach net zero, we are gearing up to scale up as quickly as possible. The elegant design of our electrolyser is perfectly suited to mass production.”
“Green hydrogen” refers to hydrogen produced using renewable sources of energy, rather than fossil fuels.
Technical details have been published in the journal Nature Communications here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28953-x
The electrolysis system used is described as “capillary-fed electrolysis”, which is described in the Nature article:
Here a unique concept of water electrolysis is introduced, wherein water is supplied to hydrogen- and oxygen-evolving electrodes via capillary-induced transport along a porous inter-electrode separator, leading to inherently bubble-free operation at the electrodes.
Hystata projects that a pilot plant will be built in 2022 and they expect to reach “gigawatt scale hydrogen production capacity by 2025”
