Smoltek’s groundbreaking technology for green hydrogen earns expert recognition

In the report, Dr Felix N. Büchi – Group Lead­er of the Elec­tro­chem­istry Labor­at­ory at the Paul Scher­rer Insti­tute – con­firms that the elec­trode exhib­it state-of-the-art per­form­ance while using sig­ni­fic­antly less of the rare pre­cious met­al iridi­um, which could lead to more cost-effect­ive pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen.

Smoltek’s elec­trodes are a very inter­est­ing devel­op­ment for the pro­duc­tion of low iridi­um load­ing elec­trodes for PEM electrolyzers.

^{Dr Felix N. Büchi, writes in the report}

In a PEM elec­tro­lys­er, there is a thin mem­brane between the two elec­trodes. On the side where the oxy­gen is developed (anode side) it is required to use iridi­um as a cata­lyst. Iridi­um is a rare and very expens­ive pre­cious met­al, and the price is expec­ted to rise to 700,000 euros per kg towards the end of this decade.

With con­ven­tion­al tech­no­logy, up to 2.0 mg of iridi­um per cm² is used today, which in 2030 cor­res­ponds to a cost of 35 mil­lion euros for a 100 MW elec­tro­lyz­er with a 2,500 m² mem­brane. Lead­ing com­pet­it­ors have man­aged to reduce the use to 0.5 mg per cm², which would entail a cost of close to 9 mil­lion euros for a 100 MW elec­tro­lyz­er at an iridi­um price of 700,000 euros per kg.

How­ever, Smol­tek has already reached down to 0.2 mg of iridi­um per cm² with per­form­ance that Dr. Büchi describes as “matches the latest tech­no­logy” and is aim­ing for 0.1 mg per cm². This would reduce the cost of a 100 MW elec­tro­lyz­er to below 2 mil­lion euros.

Doc­tor Büchi’s pos­it­ive eval­u­ation con­firms that our tech­no­logy can drastic­ally reduce the use of iridi­um in PEM elec­tro­lyz­ers. With a rap­idly rising iridi­um price, our tech­no­logy will be a key to cost-effect­ive pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen

Ellinor Ehrn­berg, Pres­id­ent of Smol­tek Hydrogen