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TNO has been working for years on revolutionary electrolysers that make green hydrogen from wind and solar energy much more efficiently and cheaply. But companies that are going to buy them want to test that technology first. That is why TNO has entered into a partnership with Avantium, which is going to build large-scale test stations for this purpose and sell them to companies. An important step towards the green hydrogen economy.

TNO is testing electrolysers that make green hydrogen much more efficiently. | Credit: TNO

Avantium - that's that Dutch company that develops bio-based plastics and chemicals, isn't it? That makes a sustainable alternative to PET with its PEF? That's right. But it also has a large R&D department for green chemistry, and that comes in handy now. Avantium is already building test stations for catalysis (accelerating chemical reactions) and is now going to do the same for electrolysers. In these, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen.

From 2.5 to 100 gigawatts

Most hydrogen today is still made from natural gas. This is called gray hydrogen. The necessary energy transition mainly requires green hydrogen. This is made with energy from wind or sun by electrolysers. The global capacity of electrolysers is now about 2.5 gigawatts. In Europe alone, that must grow to a capacity of 100 gigawatts over the next ten years in order to make enough green hydrogen.

Radical new design

Now, producing green hydrogen is still two to three times more expensive than gray hydrogen. Large-scale production of green hydrogen therefore requires a completely new type of electrolyser that works more efficiently and cheaply and requires fewer scarce raw materials. TNO, together with a consortium of technical universities and companies, has been working for years on a radically new design with new components and new materials that last longer, the so-called third generation electrolyzers. Back in 2022, TNO reported a breakthrough. It had developed an electrolyser that uses 200 times less iridium. That is an extremely scarce raw material, shortages of which will arise as green hydrogen production is scaled up. TNO is working with extremely thin atomic layers to develop electrolyzers with so-called Proton Exchange Membranes (PEM). Those technologies are being tested in laboratories in Petten and Groningen.

Shortage of testing capacity

TNO gets a lot of requests from companies for stations to test these PEM electrolysers. But the public knowledge institute is not going to build, produce and sell test stations itself. After all, this is a commercial activity. Avantium can. "There is a huge shortage of testing capacity worldwide. We need test stations where you can test one or more cells from 1 to 10 square centimeters, to develop new cells and membranes. Avantium is going to build these test stations based on our design and market them, i.e. sell them to companies," explains Lennart van der Burg, cluster manager for green hydrogen at TNO. "After all, companies are not going to buy a new generation of electrolysers or their components if they cannot test them." He says this is an important step toward the ultimate goal: using better electrolysers worldwide that produce green hydrogen more cheaply.

Meeting need

Avantium R&D Solutions will sell the test units both to producers of electrolysers and to their suppliers. These need them to test the improved technology. Director Steven Oliver of Avantium R&D Solutions said, "We believe this collaboration with TNO brings together two recognized leaders in R&D and innovation to help the industry accelerate the development of electrolysis for the production of green hydrogen. Currently, existing electrolysis technologies and production capabilities are insufficient to meet the expected demand in the coming years. We believe we can address the need to scale up the capacity of electrolyzers while improving the design of the technology."

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