TechCrunch News 2024年11月15日
Ecolectro stuffs hydrogen production into shipping containers to cut costs
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氢能作为一种环保燃料,面临着成本高昂的挑战,尤其是在运输和生产环节。传统氢气生产方式依赖化石燃料,且运输成本高。Ecolectro公司开发了一种模块化电解槽,可以安装在集装箱内,实现现场制氢,降低运输和储存成本。他们采用了一种新型膜材料,并使用更便宜的镍催化剂,提高了电解槽的效率和降低了成本。Ecolectro的目标是通过小型化和模块化的设计,为客户提供更经济实惠的绿氢解决方案,并最终实现氢气成本的目标,推动氢能的广泛应用。

🤔**氢能成本高昂是制约其发展的主要因素:** 氢气运输成本高,且传统制氢方式依赖化石燃料,导致环境污染和成本增加。

📦**Ecolectro开发了模块化电解槽,实现现场制氢:** 通过将电解槽安装在集装箱内,可以减少氢气运输和储存的成本和风险,降低物流成本。

💡**Ecolectro采用创新材料和技术降低制氢成本:** 他们使用新型膜材料替代PFAS化合物,并使用镍催化剂替代贵金属,从而降低了电解槽的成本和提高了效率。

🚀**Ecolectro的目标是实现低成本绿氢生产:** 他们正在努力实现每公斤氢气1.35美元的目标,接近美国能源部设定的1美元/公斤的目标,推动绿氢的大规模应用。

🌱**Ecolectro的小型化和模块化设计更易于客户接受:** 这种设计更适合那些每周仅需一辆卡车氢气的客户,降低了客户的进入门槛,促进绿氢的普及。

For all its promise as a climate friendly fuel, hydrogen hasn’t had much luck. It lost the battle over personal transportation to battery electric vehicles, and for industrial users, it remains far more expensive than natural gas.

That’s in part because natural gas can flow through sprawling networks of pipelines. Hydrogen doesn’t, which means buyers either have to rely on fossil-derived hydrogen (and its associated pollution) or truck it in at great expense. 

Like many hydrogen entrepreneurs, Gabriel Rodriguez-Calero figures the best way to rein in costs is to bring production closer to where it’s being used. His startup, Ecolectro, is making hydrogen-producing electrolyzers that fit inside a shipping container. 

“We are very interested in figuring out who’s trucking in hydrogen today,” he told TechCrunch. By making the gas on site, “you’re mitigating a lot of risk around logistics of transportation, logistics of storage at the site.”

But storage is just one problem that green hydrogen is facing. Simply making the stuff isn’t cheap, either. Some electrolyzers are made with expensive materials, while others using century-old technology aren’t very efficient. More recently, though, scientists have been exploring ways of making cheaper electrolyzers more efficient.

Rodriguez-Calero was one of them. After studying battery-related technologies while getting his doctorate from Cornell University, he and Kristina Hugar co-founded Ecolectro. Typically, electrolyzers follow one of two approaches: proton-exchange membrane (PEM) or alkaline electrolysis. The former tends to be pricier but more efficient, while the latter is less efficient but cheaper. Ecolectro adopts features of each by building a membrane that can withstand the harsher conditions of alkaline electrolysis.

Most membranes used in PEM electrolysis consist of PFAS compounds, which have come under scrutiny for their persistence in the environment. Ecolectro’s found a way to skip the PFAS. It also uses nickel as a catalyst instead of iridium or platinum, which are often used in PEM electrolyzers. “You can use 1,000 times the nickel per amount of iridium you might use and still not change the cost,” Rodriguez-Calero said. 

The startup has built a small 10-kilowatt electrolyzer capable of producing 5 kilograms of hydrogen per day. It’s currently being tested by Liberty Utilities in Upstate New York, where the utility is blending hydrogen into the natural gas it distributes. Ecolectro is in the process of building its first commercial scale electrolyzer, a 250-kilowatt model that can pump out 125 kg per day. Rodriguez-Calero said the bigger version will be available in the first quarter of next year.

That’s smaller than many electrolyzer projects, which tend to be measured in megawatts. But Rodriguez-Calero thinks Ecolectro’s smaller, modular electrolyzes will help wary customers jump aboard. “That size is very attractive for the people who order one truck of hydrogen per week,” he said.

Lisa Coca, partner at Toyota Ventures, thinks that Ecolectro has a shot at producing hydrogen for $1.35 per kilogram by the end of the decade. That’s close to the Department of Energy’s goal of $1 per kilogram.

To help hit its targets, Ecolectro raised a $10.6 million Series A led by the Toyota Ventures climate fund with participation from Cornell University, New Climate. Ventures, Starshot Climate, and Techstars.

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氢能 绿氢 电解槽 Ecolectro 可持续能源
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