Green hydrogen: Gen-Hy has developed high performance catalysts free of rare earth elements.
In the field of alkaline electrolysers, Gen-Hy, a French start-up offering innovative solutions for green hydrogen production, has developed new high-performance PGM-free (platinum group metal-free) catalysts free of any rare earth metals with catalytic deposition processes on its Gen-AEM® membranes.
This technological breakthrough enables achieving efficiency levels higher than 85%, compared with average efficiency of 65% currently on the market. Gen-Hy is positioned as the most efficient company in the sector.
There are several processes for producing green hydrogen, including water electrolysis, which achieves high gas purity but at a high cost.
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The optimization of the hydrogen production process is a race towards efficiency so that the hydrogen produced becomes an ecological and economical alternative.
Gen-Hy has therefore developed a new formulation of high-performance catalysts based on nickel nanoparticles, a cheap and abundant metal. This replaces the expensive and rare earth metals like platinum and iridium, which are commonly used in catalysts.
The process improvement is mainly linked to an increase in the contact surface between the catalyst and water, this is made possible by the use of nano-catalysts deposited on the Gen-AEM® membranes.
Thanks to a new application process on the market, Gen-Hy improves the performance of electrolysis reaction and increases the amount of hydrogen produced by 30% for a 1 MW electrolyser.
Gen-Hy achieves efficiencies of over 85% with a hydrogen production capacity of 518 kg/day for 1 MW consumed electrical power, while the market average is 65% efficiency for a hydrogen production capacity of 395 kg/day.
These research results were obtained after 3 years of R&D. Patent applications are in progress.
With serious assets, Gen-Hy must succeed in the transition of producing hydrogen at the laboratory scale to the industrial production scale with the construction of its AEM electrolyser production plant in Belfort, to be delivered in 2024.
With such results, Gen-Hy is well on the way to making hydrogen an ecological and economical alternative.
Sébastien Le Pollès, CEO of Gen-Hy, said:
This is a step forward in the production of hydrogen at high yields, without the use of rare earth metals, which are limited resources on our planet.
“This is the only way to produce hydrogen on an industrial scale.”.
Green hydrogen: Gen-Hy has developed high performance catalysts free of rare earth elements, Paris, April 6, 2023
