Fuelling up for the hydrogen revolution — at minus 253C
Christchurch company Fabrum (formerly AF Cryo) was founded in 2004 by Christopher Boyle and Hugh Reynolds. Its original focus was superconductivity, but it moved into cryo cooling — making systems to create and store liquid nitrogen and oxygen — the second of which was suddenly in great demand with the pandemic. Nasa has also been a customer for its Mars rovers.
On a more down-to-earth level, Fabrum’s systems have been used to freeze bull semen.
More recently, Fabrum has moved into hydrogen. “The hydrogen side of the business is absolutely blowing up,” says chief executive Dr Ojas Mahapatra. “The main demand we see is coming out of heavy transport and aviation. There are good financial drivers to change and there’s also a focus on [environmental and social] mandates,” says Mahapatra, who gained a PhD in nanotechnology at Canterbury University before going into venture capital.
His choice of metaphor might worry anyone with safety concerns, but bear in mind that the technology is using electrolysis to separate hydrogen atoms from oxygen, not split them.
The privately held firm doesn’t reveal financial results but Mahapatra says, “we’ve found ourselves in an amazing spot to influence the new and emerging hydrogen economy. We’ve almost doubled in size in the past year from
37 employees to close to 60. And we’ll be close to 90 to 100 in the next
12 months.”
Clients include Toyota (for its hydrogen-powered chase boat for the next America’s Cup), Airbus, HamiltonJet, and Rocket Lab.
Fabrum has partnered with UK startup Clean Power Hydrogen (or CPH2), founded in 2016, on electrolysing technology. It applied its own cryo-smarts for storing the hydrogen produced, which must be kept at minus 253C, or just above absolute zero. The Christchurch company manages this with no energy input or energy loss. Exactly how is its own secret.
Each of the two 1.1MW hydrogen systems supplied to HWR will produce around 400kg of hydrogen a day on-site at a refuelling station.
When the Weekend Herald visited, Fabrum was putting the finishing touches on a system in a shipping container to create liquid oxygen for a European client. Mahapatra says the same modular, container-housed approach could be used for hydrogen systems to quickly deploy them around fuel stations.
One dual-fuel truck will consume
15kg of hydrogen a day, representing 40 to 50 per cent of its fuel use. Trucks will need to be fuelled up every second day with hydrogen, meaning each station will be able to support the refuelling of
27 vehicles a day. Dual-fuel trucks running an average of 384km a day could eliminate 102kg of carbon emissions a day per truck — more than 13,000 tonnes of CO2 if all of HWR’s fleet was converted.
Freezing the hydrogen creates a lot of heat, which can be captured and used for various applications.
The electrolysis process also creates medical-grade oxygen — in fact, five times as much oxygen as hydrogen — so HWR could well become a supplier to our healthcare system as an offshoot of its green energy project.
CPH2’s system is also cutting edge in that it’s a membrane-free electrolyser. In practical terms, that means it skips the usual requirement for ultra-pure water. Any potable water will do — which should also help to easily plonk the systems around the country, assuming HWR does go ahead with a wider rollout.
“In time there will be refuelling stations just like a petrol station,” Mahapatra says.
“Hydrogen will be available to buy sooner than you think across New Zealand.”