Equatic will begin developing oxygen-selective anodes (OSAs) at its San Diego facility, a key component for its scalable seawater hydrogen production technology.
Equatic’s production process combines electrolysis with direct air capture, a system that traditionally relies on pure water to produce hydrogen. However, the OSAs allow the process to tap into ocean water.
The firm will develop OSAs at its San Diego electroplating facility, which is expected to produce 4,000 pieces annually and will run at full capacity by the end of 2024.
The OSAs were manufactured by co-founder and Lead Scientist, Dr. Xin Chen, with $3m funding support from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
Dr. Chen began developing the seawater electrolysis process in 2021, intending to avoid harmful chlorine gases. Following the grant from ARPA-E, his UCLA team created catalysts that prevented chlorine formation, extended anode lifespan and enabled recycling.
After three years, the anodes just need a new coat of catalysts made from “affordable, earth-abundant elements to make them as good as new, lasting for decades.”
“Traditional electrolysis has only been possible with pure water, an increasingly scarce global resource,” explained Dr. Doug Wicks, Programme Director at ARPA-E.
“Equatic’s OSAs eliminate the processes’ dependence on pure water and tap into the world’s most abundant water resource instead: the ocean.”
Edward Sanders, Chief Operating Officer at Equatic, added, “Our method removes the largest barriers to participate in carbon removal and clean energy production, namely high cost and the availability of specific geological formations, such as underground aquifers, CO2 pipelines, or desalination plants.
“With OSAs in production, Equatic is ready to help coastal regions around the world play a critical role in reaching the planet’s climate goals.”
H2 View understands that clean hydrogen production will “help subsidise the cost of carbon removal, quickly bringing it down to less than $100 per tonne before 2030.”
Equatic plans to incorporate the OSAs into its upcoming demonstration-scale plant in Singapore and the first commercial-scale plant in Quebec. The latter could generate 3,600 tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2026.
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