The par­ties have signed a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment, which means that Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers and cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion will be com­bined with oth­er mate­ri­als from the man­u­fac­tur­er, and cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles from a third par­ty, into a lab-sized demon­stra­tor. This demon­stra­tion mate­r­i­al will then be inte­grat­ed into a com­plete PEM elec­trolyz­er cell, fol­lowed by test runs and mea­sure­ment of its performance.

“It is excit­ing that we and our part­ner have now signed a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment for this devel­op­ment project, and we are both look­ing for­ward to devel­op­ing a com­plete PEM elec­trolyz­er cell with our patent-pro­tect­ed technology,”

says Fabi­an Wenger, Tech Lead at Smoltek Innovation

This project is con­duct­ed to ver­i­fy the poten­tial of Smoltek’s nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al and its abil­i­ty to reduce the amount of extreme­ly expen­sive cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy increas­es the active sur­face that is in con­tact with the mem­brane in the elec­trolyz­er cell, which in turn reduces the total size of the elec­trolyz­er with main­tained pro­duc­tion capacity.

“Togeth­er, these prop­er­ties sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the pro­duc­tion cost for green hydrogen,”

says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Innovation.

EU Hydro­gen invest­ments are sky­rock­et­ing
18 May 2022 the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion pre­sent­ed a wide range of ini­tia­tives to reduce Europe’s reliance on fos­sil fuels and a list of pro­pos­als aimed to stim­u­late the pro­duc­tion of renew­able hydro­gen and to improve frame­work con­di­tions for Euro­pean elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers were includ­ed in this plan, known as RePow­erEU.

These pro­pos­als includ­ed, among oth­ers, two main tar­gets: To increase the indus­try tar­get from 50% renew­able hydro­gen con­sump­tion in 2030 to 75%. And to dou­bling the next ETS Inno­va­tion Fund call for large scale projects set to be announced in Autumn of this year. EUR 3 bil­lion will be made avail­able, for among oth­er elec­trolyz­er manufacturers.

”Fur­ther­more, the Euro­pean elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty must be scaled-up sig­nif­i­cant­ly to meet the expect­ed demand for renew­able hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. Elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ers in Europe set the objec­tive to have in place by 2025 a com­bined annu­al elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty in Europe of 17.5 GW, and to fur­ther increase that capac­i­ty by 2030 in line with pro­ject­ed demand for renew­able and low-car­bon hydrogen48. To sup­port these objec­tives, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion will put in place enabling reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work, facil­i­tate access to finance and pro­mote effi­cient sup­ply chains. The upscal­ing of the elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ties will require invest­ments esti­mat­ed at up to €2bn,”

states the RePoweEU plan.