How Smoltek Hydrogen aligns development with customer needs – interview with Ellinor Ehrnberg

When an indus­tri­al enter­prise wants to adopt the tech­nol­o­gy of a high-tech com­pa­ny, it fol­lows a struc­tured process from ini­tial eval­u­a­tion to full mar­ket inte­gra­tion. As out­lined in our pre­vi­ous arti­cle Nav­i­gat­ing cor­po­rate prod­uct devel­op­ment as small high-tech com­pa­ny, these process­es have six major stages:

1. Fuzzy front end: The enter­prise com­pa­ny iden­ti­fies a spe­cif­ic prob­lem or eval­u­ates promis­ing inno­va­tions, often test­ing small­er lab sam­ples to assess the technology’s potential.
2. Div­ing deep: The enter­prise estab­lish­es for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion through fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies or joint devel­op­ment projects, con­duct­ing in-depth analy­sis of tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial aspects.
3. Forg­ing part­ner­ship: The enter­prise selects its tech­nol­o­gy sup­pli­er and deep­ens col­lab­o­ra­tion through a sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ment, secur­ing access to the new technology.
4. Deep­ened co-cre­ation: The enter­prise begins detailed design work, with the high-tech com­pa­ny serv­ing as a tech­ni­cal advi­sor to help adapt the tech­nol­o­gy to spe­cif­ic products.
5. Prac­ti­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion: The enter­prise pro­duces and tests pro­to­types to ensure func­tion­al­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and com­pli­ance, often requir­ing mul­ti­ple design iterations.
6. Go to mar­ket: The enter­prise shifts from devel­op­ment to reg­u­lar pro­duc­tion, grad­u­al­ly increas­ing out­put as process­es sta­bi­lize, while the high-tech com­pa­ny begins ful­fill­ing long-term sup­ply contracts.

Now it’s time to take a clos­er look at how Smoltek Hydro­gen has posi­tioned itself with­in this framework.

”Our strat­e­gy is not to get ahead of our poten­tial cus­tomers, but to keep pace with where they are in their process. Some are mov­ing cau­tious­ly, oth­ers are mov­ing quick­ly,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen. ”Her­aeus, with whom we’ve already had a strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion, I think is already at stage 3 and mov­ing quick­ly to stage 4. Sev­er­al oth­ers are on the cusp of mov­ing from stage 1 to stage 2 and are ready to take that crit­i­cal next stage with us.”

Iridium – a scarce necessity for green hydrogen

Smoltek Hydro­gen has devel­oped a unique tech­nol­o­gy, Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE), which dras­ti­cal­ly reduces the need for irid­i­um in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. As we have pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten about in Unlock­ing the green hydro­gen econ­o­my and The last cru­sade for 0.1 mg irid­i­um, green hydro­gen is a scarce neces­si­ty, which is why PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers are des­per­ate­ly look­ing for solu­tions to reduce the need for iridium.

”Any­one who makes PEM elec­trolyz­ers knows that they need to reduce the amount of irid­i­um used per square cen­time­ter. Today it’s about 2 mg, and we need to get down to 0.1 mg. It’s not just a tech­ni­cal thing, it’s crit­i­cal for green hydro­gen to be eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable,” says Elli­nor Ehrnberg.

This 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage isn’t just an improve­ment – it’s poten­tial­ly dis­rup­tive to the entire hydro­gen econ­o­my. By dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing costs of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy could help make clean hydro­gen (pro­duced from fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty) eco­nom­i­cal­ly com­pet­i­tive with the cheap­er gray hydro­gen cur­rent­ly pro­duced from nat­ur­al gas. This cost par­i­ty is essen­tial for accel­er­at­ing the ener­gy tran­si­tion, as eco­nom­ics – not just envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns – will ulti­mate­ly dri­ve wide­spread adop­tion of hydro­gen across all industries.

The quiet early stages – why you might not hear about all our ongoing discussions

What many share­hold­ers might not real­ize is that Smoltek Hydro­gen is already work­ing with sev­er­al renowned indus­tri­al enter­pris­es world­wide who are at the ini­tial ”fuzzy front end” stage, with some hav­ing already pur­chased sam­ples from Smoltek Hydrogen.

”We’re active­ly engaged with mul­ti­ple indus­tri­al enter­pris­es glob­al­ly, but strict con­fi­den­tial­i­ty require­ments at these ear­ly stages pre­vent us from dis­clos­ing specifics,” Elli­nor explains. ”This is stan­dard indus­try prac­tice – com­pa­nies in stage one, and often even stage two, typ­i­cal­ly pro­hib­it their tech­nol­o­gy part­ners from pub­licly dis­cussing the col­lab­o­ra­tion. This silence doesn’t indi­cate inac­tiv­i­ty; quite the oppo­site – it’s a sign of seri­ous indus­try engagement.”

”Our recent­ly announced strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­aeus is a per­fect exam­ple,” Elli­nor notes. ”We’ve been work­ing with them for some time, but it’s only now, as we enter a more for­mal­ized part­ner­ship stage, that we can pub­licly share this infor­ma­tion. This announce­ment rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone, demon­strat­ing that our tech­nol­o­gy has suc­cess­ful­ly pro­gressed through the ini­tial eval­u­a­tion stages.”

From idea to study phase – moving at industry pace

Smoltek Hydro­gen has estab­lished dia­logue with key play­ers across the PEM val­ue chain, includ­ing both major elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers and their strate­gic sup­pli­ers. After ini­tial tech­nol­o­gy pre­sen­ta­tions, sev­er­al of these indus­try stake­hold­ers have pro­gressed to more detailed tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions and sam­ple eval­u­a­tions, posi­tion­ing them at the advanced stages of the ini­tial eval­u­a­tion phase. Accord­ing to Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, the feed­back from these inter­ac­tions has been high­ly encour­ag­ing, with clear indi­ca­tions that sev­er­al com­pa­nies are prepar­ing to take their assess­ment of Smoltek Hydrogen’s tech­nol­o­gy to the next level.

”This is a great sign. It means they see the poten­tial of our tech­nol­o­gy and are ready to go deep­er. They’ve played around with our mate­r­i­al in the lab and now they want to take the next step,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. ”And that’s where it’s real­ly impor­tant for us to show that our tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers what we promise and that we can deliv­er what they need. We start by deliv­er­ing small sam­ples, 2×2 cen­time­ters, and show that it works. Then we take it further.”

And what hap­pens when they move into the tri­al phase?

”Then we deliv­er larg­er sam­ples, typ­i­cal­ly 5×5 cen­time­ters, and work close­ly with them to help them eval­u­ate the tech­nol­o­gy. It’s about iden­ti­fy­ing and man­ag­ing the tech­ni­cal risks and adapt­ing the tech­nol­o­gy to their spe­cif­ic needs,” explains Ellinor.

Indus­try experts have tak­en notice of Smoltek Hydrogen’s approach. Dr. Felix Büchi recent­ly high­light­ed the unique­ness of Smoltek Hydrogen’s solu­tion – specif­i­cal­ly how they can pre­pare a very low amount of irid­i­um with high sur­face area on the PTL.

”When experts like Dr. Büchi val­i­date what we’re doing, and you pair that with how des­per­ate­ly the indus­try needs to solve the irid­i­um prob­lem… well, things can move pret­ty quick­ly,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg says. ”And what’s encour­ag­ing for us is that we’re not just wait­ing for some big pay­day down the road – we will gen­er­ate increas­ing rev­enue all along the way.”

How so?

”Well, we are already sell­ing con­sult­ing ser­vices and pro­to­types. They need our exper­tise to see how they can incor­po­rate our tech­nol­o­gy into their prod­ucts. And we will also start sell­ing more and more of our cell mate­r­i­al, PTE,” explains Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. ”In addi­tion, sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ments are an impor­tant part. We enter into agree­ments with man­u­fac­tur­ers where we are paid to help them adapt our tech­nol­o­gy to their spe­cif­ic needs and volumes.”

How long does it usu­al­ly take for a PEM man­u­fac­tur­er to go through the dif­fer­ent phases?

“It real­ly depends on what’s dri­ving the mar­ket. When you’ve got a solu­tion to a seri­ous prob­lem like the irid­i­um short­age, things can move much faster than usu­al. We’re see­ing incred­i­ble momen­tum in green hydro­gen right now – man­u­fac­tur­ers know they need to solve this, and they can’t wait around for­ev­er. I’d say we’re in the right place at the right time with our tech­nol­o­gy. We need to get it right, though. And we must ensure we can scale up grad­u­al­ly as mar­ket demand grows,” says Elli­nor Ehrnberg.

The timing advantage – riding the energy transition wave

While devel­op­ment process­es fol­low estab­lished frame­works, Elli­nor empha­sizes that actu­al pro­gres­sion can accel­er­ate dra­mat­i­cal­ly when a tech­nol­o­gy address­es urgent mar­ket needs.

”The pace of devel­op­ment can vary great­ly between dif­fer­ent indus­tri­al enter­pris­es,” Elli­nor explains. ”When a tech­nol­o­gy offers a com­pelling solu­tion to a crit­i­cal mar­ket chal­lenge – as our PTE tech­nol­o­gy does for irid­i­um reduc­tion – we often see tra­di­tion­al time­lines com­press sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Com­pa­nies just can’t afford to move at a nor­mal pace when their com­peti­tors might be rac­ing to solve the same prob­lem. We’re see­ing this urgency first­hand in the green hydro­gen space.”

Her­aeus exem­pli­fies this accel­er­at­ed tra­jec­to­ry. ”Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­aeus has pro­gressed at an impres­sive pace,” Elli­nor notes. ”Their recog­ni­tion of the strate­gic val­ue of our PTE tech­nol­o­gy, com­bined with the mar­ket pres­sures to reduce irid­i­um depen­den­cy, cre­at­ed the right con­di­tions for a swift advance­ment to a for­mal partnership.”

This vari­able tim­ing works in Smoltek Hydrogen’s favor, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the glob­al focus on sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions. ”We’re for­tu­nate that our tech­nol­o­gy address­es a crit­i­cal bot­tle­neck in the green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion chain at pre­cise­ly the moment when the world is under­go­ing a nec­es­sary ener­gy tran­si­tion,” explains Elli­nor. ”This align­ment cre­ates a sense of urgency among poten­tial part­ners that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­ate the typ­i­cal devel­op­ment timeline.”

The real­i­ty today is that many indus­tri­al enter­pris­es are mov­ing much faster than in pre­vi­ous decades. Com­pa­nies like Apple, NVIDIA, and even hydro­gen com­pa­nies like Pow­er­Cell have demon­strat­ed the abil­i­ty to rapid­ly devel­op and inte­grate new tech­nolo­gies when they see a clear strate­gic advantage.

Matching production to market opportunity

A major strength in Smoltek Hydrogen’s approach is how thought­ful­ly they’re plan­ning their pro­duc­tion growth. Rather than rush­ing to build large-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing before the mar­ket is ready, Smoltek Hydro­gen is tak­ing a more mea­sured approach that makes finan­cial sense.

”We’re being smart about how we scale up,” explains Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. ”Build­ing a huge fac­to­ry right now would tie up mon­ey we could use more effec­tive­ly else­where. Instead, we’ve devel­oped a flex­i­ble approach where we can start small­er and expand as cus­tomer demand grows. We begin in the lab, move to pilot pro­duc­tion, and then scale to indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing when we have sol­id orders. This way, we’re invest­ing at the right time and pace.”

This strat­e­gy gives Smoltek Hydro­gen impor­tant advan­tages in an emerg­ing mar­ket. By stay­ing nim­ble and adjust­ing pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty as the mar­ket devel­ops, they can respond quick­ly to oppor­tu­ni­ties while man­ag­ing risks. The team has iden­ti­fied the key tech­no­log­i­cal stages to scale pro­duc­tion when need­ed, with­out over­com­mit­ting resources too ear­ly in the process.

A partner for the future

Elli­nor Ehrn­berg empha­sizes that Smoltek Hydro­gen is not just a mate­r­i­al sup­pli­er, but a part­ner to the major PEM manufacturers:

”We want to be part of the whole jour­ney and help our cus­tomers to inte­grate our tech­nol­o­gy into their prod­ucts. It’s not just about sell­ing a mate­r­i­al, it’s about build­ing long-term rela­tion­ships and shar­ing our exper­tise. We have unique knowl­edge in this area.”

This col­lab­o­ra­tive approach is essen­tial for suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ing such advanced technology.

”And we’re open to learn­ing from them too – they know their prod­ucts and process­es inside out. By work­ing togeth­er, we can find the best solu­tion. The key is show­ing that we’re a reli­able part­ner who can deliv­er what they need, when they need it. This busi­ness requires patience and per­sis­tence, but we’re in it for the long run.”

Translating strategy into action

How does Smoltek Hydro­gen turn this approach into tan­gi­ble results? The com­pa­ny ben­e­fits from Pres­i­dent Elli­nor Ehrn­berg’s exper­tise – with her PhD in Tech­nol­o­gy and Cor­po­rate Strat­e­gy from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy and prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence from com­pa­nies like SKF and Rise. This back­ground has direct­ly shaped Smoltek’s mar­ket strategy.

“Our devel­op­ment roadmap is care­ful­ly syn­chro­nized with where our poten­tial cus­tomers are in their own process­es,” explains Elli­nor. “We’re pre­pared to meet man­u­fac­tur­ers at what­ev­er stage they’re in – whether they’re just begin­ning to explore solu­tions to the irid­i­um prob­lem or are ready for deep­er integration.”

This thought­ful align­ment means Smoltek can gen­er­ate rev­enue through­out the jour­ney – from ini­tial sam­ple sales and con­sult­ing in ear­ly stages to increas­ing­ly sub­stan­tial devel­op­ment agree­ments as rela­tion­ships mature. The Her­aeus part­ner­ship exem­pli­fies how rapid­ly pro­gres­sion can occur when tech­nol­o­gy and mar­ket needs align perfectly.

“What’s espe­cial­ly promis­ing is how our com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties grow at each stage,” notes Elli­nor. “We start with mod­est rev­enue from sam­ples and con­sult­ing, but as we progress to for­mal agree­ments and joint devel­op­ment projects, the com­mer­cial rela­tion­ships become much more substantial.”

Now it’s your turn

In this arti­cle, we have explained how Smoltek Hydro­gen is match­ing the pace of the major PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, how they are scal­ing up pro­duc­tion over time, and how mul­ti­ple indus­tri­al enter­pris­es are already engaged at var­i­ous stages of devel­op­ment with Smoltek Hydro­gen. We’ve also clar­i­fied why you might not hear about all col­lab­o­ra­tions due to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty require­ments in ear­ly devel­op­ment stages, and how the recent Her­aeus announce­ment exem­pli­fies suc­cess­ful pro­gres­sion through the devel­op­ment process.

In our next arti­cle, we’ll explore how tru­ly dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions like Smoltek’s PTE tech­nol­o­gy can dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate tra­di­tion­al devel­op­ment time­lines, and why this cre­ates a strate­gic deci­sion point for indus­tri­al enter­pris­es that sep­a­rates mar­ket lead­ers from those who fall behind.

Now it’s your turn to share your thoughts. Leave a com­ment or ask a ques­tion in the com­ments sec­tion of our LinkedIn post on this arti­cle. We promise to answer and share as much as we can, tak­ing into account con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ments and what is allowed by laws and reg­u­la­tions for pub­lic companies.