Israeli startup H2Pro joined the race to make cheap green hydrogen after securing investments from funds backed by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.
As governments and industries get serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, demand has grown for hydrogen produced by splitting water—using renewable electricity—as a potential carbon-free fuel to replace coal, oil and natural gas. H2Pro said Tuesday it raised $22 million to move its technology from the lab to the factory floor. Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. and automaker Hyundai Motor Co also invested.
Hydrogen will likely be a crucial part of decarbonizing industries like steel and cement, and perhaps also shipping and aviation — given the limits of current battery technology. Until now, however, green hydrogen hasn’t been widely adopted because it’s quite expensive to produce.
“We definitely see a worldwide market for these devices,” said Talmon Marco, H2Pro’s chief executive officer. “When we started the company back in 2019, it was much more difficult to have a conversation with investors about hydrogen. And today it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, absolutely. Hydrogen is happening.’”
Marco earlier co-founded the messaging and calling app Viber, which was acquired by Rakuten Inc. for $900 million in 2014. He then co-founded and led the ride-hailing app Juno until it was bought by Gett Inc. for $200 million in 2017.
H2Pro’s technology is similar to the alkaline electrolyzers that are most commonly used today to make green hydrogen, but with a crucial twist. When water is split, the current process uses electrical energy not just to break the hydrogen and oxygen atoms apart, but also to pair two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms, respectively, to make the separate gases.
H2Pro reduces that energy use by splitting the step in two. First, it creates hydrogen at the electrolyzer’s cathode. The chemical reaction also changes the composition of its nickel-based anode. The cell is then flooded with a hot liquid, which helps the anode release oxygen gas with the help of thermal energy instead of electrical power, before the first step can be performed again. Read more…
