NewHydrogen, Inc. provided an update on its ThermoLoop technology, which uses water and heat instead of electricity to produce the world's expensive green hydrogen. The company shared progress on its collaboration with the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in developing the ThermoLoop technology. Working with a world class research team at UC Santa Barbara, NewHydrogen is developing ThermoLoop, a novel thermochemical process capable of water splitting without relying on costly electricity or expensive electrolyzers.

Instead, it leverages relatively low-cost heat. Notably, unlike electrolysis, the process costs decrease with increasing unit size - allowing the potential for large-scale clean hydrogen production. The most common method of making green hydrogen is to split water into oxygen and hydrogen with an electrolyzer using green electricity produced from solar or wind.

However, green electricity is, and always will be, very expensive. It currently accounts for over 70% of the cost of green hydrogen. Traditionally, thermochemical methods have relied on managing extreme temperatures, often exceeding 2,000 C, to split water into oxygen and oxygen.

However, the ThermoLoop process is based on materials identified with an innovative model developed by the UCSB team for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen within standard industrial temperature ranges, typically below 1000 C. This is pivotal in achieving the most cost-effective and efficient production of green hydrogen.