The construction site of a hydrogen production plant in Germany.
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A California startup, backed by two pioneering scientists, one of whom is a Nobel Prize winner, believes it is on the cusp of a “quantum leap” in the hydrogen energy race.
H2MOF, which was co-founded in 2021, is working to develop a hydrogen storage solution by implementing the latest advances in the field of molecular engineering materials.
A breakthrough in what he sees as the biggest challenge for the hydrogen economy is only a matter of time.
“Hydrogen production, as far as I know, is a solved problem,” Professor Fraser Stoddart, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and one of the co-founders of H2MOF, told CNBC via video conference.
“There are many efficient ways to produce hydrogen. The big challenge that remains is to store it in a way that stores a large amount of it at low pressures and ambient temperatures,” Stoddart said. “I’m confident that one way or another we’ll get there, obviously.”
Hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe and has long been considered one of many potential energy sources that could play a critical role in the green transition.
I would say that in the next two years we should be able to make another leap in quality.
Professor Omar Yaghi
co-founder of H2MOF
Turning hydrogen into fuel requires energy. When produced using renewable energy, hydrogen’s only climate footprint is water, making it an attractive option for applications such as transportation and electricity generation.
Currently, most hydrogen is produced using fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, a process that generates planet-warming emissions.
Professor Omar Yaghi, founder of the scientific field of lattice chemistry and co-founder of H2MOF, said the company is trying to compress hydrogen into a small volume without having to use high pressure or low temperatures.
“This is really the holy grail of the field,” Yaghi said. “How can we store enough hydrogen at room temperature and be able to use it to refuel cars?”
H2MOF’s cofounders say they hope the company can overcome the high costs and energy demands associated with traditional hydrogen storage methods by designing prototype tanks that can store the energy-rich fuel in a solid state.
Yaghi, who invented metal-organic framework (MOF) materials, providing the inspiration for the startup’s name, said it is difficult to say precisely when H2MOF technology might be able to achieve a dramatic improvement in capacity and hydrogen storage safety.
“But I would say that in the next couple of years we should be able to make another quantum leap,” Yaghi said.
Hydrogen challenges
Hydrogen energy is gaining momentum despite global headwinds, such as rising interest rates and supply chain issues.
Countries including the United States, Germany, Japan and Australia have announced or updated national hydrogen strategies in recent years, seeking to expand their reliance on the gas to transition to a low-carbon economy.
An industry report released late last year by the Hydrogen Council, a business group, found that the hydrogen project pipeline had risen to $570 billion, a 35% increase from just six months earlier.
The report said that while global hydrogen investment growth to 2030 remained robust, additional projects will need to be announced and existing projects will need to mature more quickly.
Hydrogen cars refueling at True Zero in Fountain Valley in June 2023.
Allen J. Cockroaches | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
Samer Taha, CEO and co-founder of H2MOF, said that an “interim solution” to the hydrogen storage challenge will likely be achieved within a few years.
“But getting to the Holy Grail? Probably more than a couple of years but not necessarily decades,” Taha told CNBC via video conference. “From the speed at which we see the progress of research, accelerated by artificial intelligence and all these computer-generated models, I predict that it will be a matter of years and not decades.”
H2MOF’s Stoddart approved of his colleague’s timeline. “But it is always very difficult to predict the future,” he added.
Critics of hydrogen say that while the fuel can play an important role in the energy transition, it can only do so in a truly climate-friendly way. Otherwise we risk increasing pollution that is harmful to health and blocking the progress of clean energy.
“There are definitely challenges,” Taha said. “Electricity cannot really meet all energy demand needs in all segments and in all sectors. The only way to do this is to provide an alternative fuel that has high energy intensity, similar to or better than a fuel fossil, and currently the cleanest option we have is hydrogen.”
He added: “My point is that sooner or later we will reach a bottleneck where electrification will no longer be possible and we will need to provide an alternative fuel, namely hydrogen.”