C-Zero is raising $18M to make emission-free hydrogen using natural gas, filings reveal

Hydrogen startup C-Zero has raised $5 million of an $18 million funding spherical, based on an SEC submitting.

The corporate is creating a option to strip hydrogen from methane with out emitting carbon dioxide. The ensuing hydrogen can be utilized in a variety of industries at present, together with ammonia and petrochemical manufacturing, and doubtlessly others within the close to future, together with transportation and metal manufacturing. The stable carbon waste product has the potential to be reused in all the pieces from asphalt to lithium-ion batteries.

C-Zero raised a $34 million spherical valued at $124 million post-money in 2022, based on PitchBook knowledge. The smaller goal for the brand new spherical suggests the corporate is being sensible about its prospects following its sizable haul through the pandemic.

The corporate didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The method C-Zero employs is named methane pyrolysis. C-Zero’s reactor heats pure fuel within the presence of a proprietary catalyst to interrupt hydrogen’s chemical bond with the central carbon atom in a methane molecule. 

Through the use of available pure fuel because the feedstock, C-Zero hopes to provide emission-free hydrogen for lower than different inexperienced hydrogen startups, which generally depend on costly electrolyzers powered by low-cost renewable power from wind and photo voltaic. 

Tapping into current pure fuel infrastructure additionally makes methane pyrolysis a pure match for petrochemical vegetation, which at present use pure fuel all through their operations and in addition require massive quantities of hydrogen to provide numerous chemical compounds.

The potential to promote low-cost, zero-emission hydrogen to massive, established prospects has brought on a flurry of startup exercise within the house, lots of which use methane pyrolysis. A lot of competing startups, together with Fashionable Hydrogen, Molten Industries and ReCarbon, additionally use the method.