New Brunswick startup plans commercial teal hydrogen project
A research and development startup in the Canadian province of New Brunswick said August 29 it had entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the province’s natural gas utility to commercialise its proprietary “teal” hydrogen technology, which uses microwave energy to produce emission-free hydrogen from natural gas.
Nu:ionic Technologies said the commercial agreement with Gas New Brunswick, a subsidiary of Algonquin Power & Utilities subsidiary Liberty Utilities, proposes the development of a system that will produce 2.4 tonnes/day of hydrogen using Nu:ionic’s Microwave Catalytic Reformers™ (MCRs).
“We are proud to collaborate with Liberty to deliver cleaner energy solutions to the New Brunswick communities they serve while also helping the company take another step forward in achieving their sustainability goals,” Nu:ionic CEO Jan Boshoff said.
Gas New Brunswick will pilot the blending of the hydrogen into its local distribution system, with additional potential deployment for clean power production and fuel production for zero-emission fuel cell electric vehicles in the heavy duty and mass transportation sector. The MCR technology includes a carbon capture system to produce readily-transportable liquid CO2 for sequestration.
“This is the first commercial application of Nu:ionic’s on-site, on-demand hydrogen production technology using microwave energy to decarbonise natural gas with electrified reforming,” Nu:ionic said. “Nu:ionic’s highly efficient microwave reformers eliminate the need for fuel combustion, greatly reducing the amount of feedstock required to produce hydrogen and significantly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while also allowing for the efficient use of renewable electricity to reduce the carbon footprint of the natural gas grid.”
Nu:ionic was launched in 2016 with bench-scale testing at the University of New Brunswick. In December 2019 it received investments from Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Toronto’s Valent Low Carbon Technologies and by the end of 2020 had developed a pilot unit demonstrating its technology.
A Series A funding round enabled Nu:ionic to next scale the technology for commercial use, leading to the collaboration with Gas New Brunswick.
Nu:ionic's process uses commercially-available industrial microwave technology to eliminate combustion of natural gas, producing low carbon hydrogen from natural gas with 100% capture of the associated CO2.
The technology reduces by 30% the amount of natural gas feedstock required, compared to industry-standard steam methane reforming technology, and requires five times less electricity when compared to electrolysis of water.
The process, Nu:ionic says, can be readily scaled up to produce 20 tonnes/day of hydrogen, although it has a roadmap for developing a world-scale facility producing 100 tonnes/day or more.
“Providing safe, reliable, cost-effective energy solutions – for current and future generations – is central to our purpose of sustaining energy and water for life,” said Gilles Volpé, vice president and general manager for Liberty New Brunswick. “We take pride in caring for our community and our planet and are exploring ways to further reduce our carbon footprint.”
The proposed facility is scheduled to be in operation in the first half of 2025 and Liberty is currently negotiating with hydrogen and CO2 off-takers.
When fully operational, the pilot scale hydrogen blending project is projected to have the GHG capture capacity equivalent to more than 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of forest, and depending on the use of the hydrogen, could potentially result in significantly more GHG emission reductions, Nu:ionic said.