Ekona Power closes CAD 79M Series A to advance pulsed methane pyrolysis technology for clean hydrogen production
02 February 2022
Ekona Power Inc., a Vancouver-based company that is developing a novel methane pyrolysis technology platform which produces clean and low-cost hydrogen, closed a CAD $79-million (US$62-million) Series A round. Led by Baker Hughes, the funding round also received participation from partners including Mitsui, Severstal, ConocoPhillips, TransAlta, Continental Resources, NGIF Cleantech Ventures, and BDC Capital.
The current industry standard for hydrogen production—steam methane reforming—produces a significant amount of CO2 emissions. Ekona’s pulsed methane pyrolysis (PMP) solution disassociates feedstock methane into hydrogen and solid carbon, thereby significantly reducing CO2 emissions.
PMP uses the pulsed injection of thermal and mechanical energy, resulting in the automatic removal of carbon-buildup due to unsteady flow. Built on the principles of combustion and high-speed gas dynamics, the platform is low-cost, scalable, and can be flexibly sited wherever natural gas infrastructure exists.
In 2020, Ekona was selected by Breakthrough Energy Solutions Canada (BESC) as one of ten Canadian cohort companies developing promising high-impact climate solutions and was most recently named one of the 2022 Global Cleantech 100 companies.
Fort Capital Partners acted as financial advisors and Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP served as legal counsel to Ekona.
I would say that this may produce relatively clean hydrogen and it may produce low-cost hydrogen. While it may be considerably cleaner steam reformation, any system that uses methane is not going to be totally clean and if you look at the diagram, you will see that some of methane is used for heating and also one of the products of the output is syngas which is normally a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The carbon monoxide and maybe some of the hydrogen is also used to for heating. Then it also depends on what is done with the carbon. Is it sequestered forever or is it used for other products that will eventually end up as carbon dioxide. How much methane is lost between the well and the final hydrogen output?
The only way to make truly clean hydrogen is with electrolysis using green electric power, preferably nuclear power with high temperature electrolysis so that less electric power is required. Even better would be nuclear power with a high temperature chemical reaction but the temperature required is >750 deg C and >950 deg C is most efficient. Possible but not easy, this is probably the path for clean low-cost hydrogen.
Posted by: sd | 03 February 2022 at 06:56 PM