HGenium’s technology enables green hydrogen to be produced using readily available materials and processing equipment with a wide variety of heat energy sources. The process operates at a moderate temperature of ~850°C and requires no toxic or corrosive compounds.
Dr. Brady gave his AIChE presentation on 5 November 2023. In addition to the technical summary of HGenium’s production process, Dr. Brady also summarized comparisons and benefits of using heat, rather than electricity, as an energy source for water splitting. Key benefits of a thermochemical approach include:
- A wide array of heat sources can be used, such as concentrated solar, nuclear, and industrial production process heat, widening the potential commercial cases for using a thermochemical process versus electrolysis;
- The almost 70% lower cost of heat over thermal based electricity opens the possibility of improved overall economics for many use cases; and
- Storing heat has inherent safety and cost benefits over electricity storage.
Dr. Brady’s presentation also revealed the company’s current scale-up plan to optimize effective commercialization. A pilot plant project is underway, with operations targeted for the second half of 2024, to be followed with construction of a commercial-scale demonstration unit in 2025–26. These steps will position the company and its partners to launch commercial units at substantial capacities in the future.
“HGenium is driven to provide major contributions to the world’s decarbonization goals,” said Dr. Brady. “With that mission, we are working rapidly to scale up our industry changing process breakthroughs in a way that maximizes the valuable learning to be had through sound engineering scale-up discipline.”
