H₂Tech (H₂T) sat down with Ignacio Bincaz (IB), Chief Commercial Officer at Advanced Ionics about the company’s partnership with Lummus Technology to accelerate the commercialization of the Symbion™ electrolyzer technology for green H₂ production.

H₂T: What are the main goals of the partnership between Lummus Technology and Advanced Ionics?

IB: The partnership goals, besides investment, are twofold. On one hand, it is about the acceleration of time to market for the Symbion™ electrolyzer. This is accomplished with Lummus’ expertise in key areas like technology development, scaleup, modularization, heat transfer, and intellectual property protection, as well as the fact that Lummus will hold the working capital of the modules, enabling Advanced Ionics to focus its funding on stack development and manufacturing. On the other hand, Lummus is a leader in the refining, gas processing, and petrochemical markets we are addressing together, and will be able to accelerate sales once we have a commercial offering, both through Lummus worldwide salesforce, and supply chain for manufacturing these modules.

H₂T: How will Lummus Venture Capital contribute to the commercialization of Advanced Ionics’ H₂ electrolyzer technology?

IB: It is a relationship with Lummus Technology, with an investment through Lummus Venture Capital. As mentioned above, Lummus Technology brings the expertise needed to achieve a full-scale commercial offering and sell it in the marketplace. Lummus has a large emphasis on the energy transition, and it is a leader in H₂-related processes.

H₂T: What specific engineering services and proprietary equipment will Lummus provide to support the partnership?

IB: There will be a wide range of engineering efforts involved, starting with all the necessary engineering work in scale-up, through expert heat exchanger optimization, all the way to efficient modularization and engineering packages for each specific project. Proprietary equipment will include an electrolyzer module, an additional electrolyzer balance of plant for water purification upstream of the module, and H₂ (and oxygen, as needed) conditioning for the specific use case downstream of the module.

H₂T: In what ways does the Symbion™ Electrolyzer technology differ from traditional alkaline and proton exchange membrane (PEM) technologies?

IB: The main difference between alkaline and PEM is that Symbion™ operates in a vapor phase. The electrolysis of intermediate-temperature steam inherently has a lower electricity requirement than liquid-water electrolyzers – the energy “cost” of the vaporization of water is not required in electricity form as it is in the cases of alkaline or PEM. Industrial processes that use H₂ typically generate heat at temperatures that our system can efficiently harvest, unlike solid oxide systems that require higher temperatures (at a significant opportunity cost).

H₂T: How does the use of waste heat and low-cost clean electricity impact the efficiency and cost of H₂ production with Advanced Ionics’ technology?

IB: The symbiotic integration of Advanced Ionics technology into industrial processes with waste heat at intermediate temperatures, starting as low as 150°C, enables the lower use of electricity to break the water molecule into H₂ and oxygen. Low-cost clean electricity in turn reduces even more the operating cost of H₂ production. This combination is necessary to make the decarbonization of heavy industry truly affordable. Additionally, Symbion™ is a truly scalable technology at tons a day per stack, Advanced Ionics brings the CAPEX down too.

H₂T: What sectors are expected to benefit from the decarbonization efforts enabled by this partnership?

IB: Industrial users of H₂ in general will benefit from affordable green H₂ to decarbonize their operations, specifically, the partnership focuses on refining, gas processing, and petrochemical industries. In addition to existing H₂ processes, we see new applications in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production for example. Other segments will also benefit from the technology’s development, these include ammonia and green steel.

H₂T: How does Lummus Technology's experience as a global licensor of H₂ technology influence its collaboration with Advanced Ionics?

IB: Lummus’ experience, reputation, and global reach is incredibly powerful in our efforts to make a large impact quickly in decarbonizing heavy industry. We got to work the day after signing the agreement on specific milestones in scale-up and even discussed some international pilot opportunities. H₂T