A UK company has made a “major breakthrough” in the energy industry’s drive to slash the costs of green hydrogen.
Oxford nanoSystems (OnS) claims to have come up with a coating that improves the production capacity of alkaline electrolysers by over half.
That is a “significantly lower cost” than current state-of-the-art solutions, according to OnS.
Labelled ‘nanoflux’, the advanced materials technology firm claims the coating will speed up the transition to a hydrogen economy by radically reducing production costs.
It will also help to overcome the challenge of making green hydrogen – produced using water and renewable energy through a process called electrolysis – competitive against fossil fuels.
NanoFLUX, an advanced metallic-alloy coating applied to the electrodes, promotes the formation and release of gas bubbles within the electrolyser.
As well as enhancing the overall efficiency of the process, the firm says the varnish has been combined with a “proprietary catalyst” that accelerates the hydrogen generation reaction.
An independent assessment conducted by E4Tech, part of international consulting firm ERM Group, has confirmed the breakthrough cost-benefit advantage provided by nanoFLUX.
“We are delighted with the results of the external benchmarking analysis that demonstrate the potential of nanoFLUX,” said Ian Russell, chief executive of OnS.
“The Company is working with a number of leading electrolyser manufacturers to test and, in due course, scale up the production of nanoFLUX to meet the challenge of significantly reducing the cost of green hydrogen production.”
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