Dive Brief:
- General Motors has teamed up with Nel Hydrogen US to help the company accelerate production of its new clean hydrogen technology on an industrial scale, GM announced this month.
- Norway-based Nel develops electrolyzers, which use electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen with no carbon byproducts. The process is central to producing dependable, clean sources of hydrogen to power fuel cells, Charles Freese, GM executive director of Global Hydrotec, said in a statement.
- “Nel has some of the most promising electrolyzer technology to develop clean hydrogen infrastructure, and we believe our Hydrotec fuel cell IP can help them get closer to scale,” Freese said.
Dive Insight:
The partnership aims to enable more cost effective options for sourcing renewable hydrogen, building on GM’s years of hydrogen fuel cell technology research and development.
Fuel cells and electrolyzers share the same principles for producing hydrogen, so the companies saw “substantial synergies" in transferring GM’s fuel cell knowledge to Nel’s platform.
The collaboration with Nel “is an important step to help us commercialize fuel cell technology,” Freese noted.
The automaker has been pushing the use of hydrogen fuel cell technology as more freight companies seek to reduce emissions. Hydrogen fuel cell trucks can handle longer hauls, making them more appealing for some fleets over battery electric.
Nel claims it was the first company to fully automate a traditional alkaline electrolyzer production line. Now, it’s working with GM to help produce its proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer platform using a similar manufacturing process, enabling the the company to make new technology advancements.
PEM electrolyzers are more durable than their alkaline counterparts, with faster start up times for electrolysis, according to a study in the IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. However, high manufacturing costs are the main factor restricting the development of the technology.
“An automated production concept is key when scaling up and driving down the cost of electrolyzer technology,” Nel's CEO, Håkon Volldal, said in a statement. “By utilizing the combined experience of both companies, it will help to more quickly develop a green hydrogen technology that is competitive with fossil fuels.”
