Green hydrogen has one big problem: it costs too much. Hysata, a Wollongong startup, worked out that bubbles are a big part of why.
The problem
Splitting water with electricity makes bubbles on the plates. Pushing through those bubbles burns extra power.
The fix
Hysata feeds the water up through a wick, so the bubbles never form where they get in the way.
The number that matters
Efficiency means how much of the power going in comes out as hydrogen. Hysata says normal electrolysers run at 65 to 75%. Its cell hit 98% in a peer reviewed lab test. The 95% whole system figure is Hysata’s own and still has to be proven at factory scale.
Hold numbers like that in a factory and green hydrogen gets cheap enough to matter for steel and shipping.
The factory
- Up to $49M from ARENA
- A $98M project, with Hysata matching ARENA dollar for dollar
- 50MW of electrolysers a year to start, designed to scale to 200MW
- Around 40 jobs in the Illawarra, at Port Kembla
My read
The grant pays to make the membranes, anodes and cathodes here. Australia usually invents something and lets someone else build it. This one gets built at Port Kembla. Now it has to hold up outside the lab.