Eliminating the bottlenecks in performance of lithium-sulfur batteries

Graphical abstract. Credit: Chem (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2022.03.001

Energy storage in lithium-sulfur batteries is potentially higher than in lithium-ion batteries but they are hampered by a short life. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden have now identified the main bottlenecks in performance.

Lithium-sulfur batteries are high on the wish-list for future batteries as they are made from cheaper and more environmentally friendly materials than lithium-ion batteries. They also have higher energy storage capacity and work well at much lower temperatures. However, they suffer from short lifetimes and energy loss. An article just published in the journal Chem by a research group from Uppsala University has now identified the processes that are limiting the performance of the sulfur electrodes that in turn reduces the current that can be delivered. Various different materials are formed during the discharge/charge cycles and these cause various problems. Often a localized shortage of lithium causes a bottleneck.

“Learning about problems allows us to develop new strategies and materials to improve battery performance. Identifying the real bottlenecks is needed to take the next steps. This is big research challenge in a system as complex as lithium-sulfur,” says Daniel Brandell, Professor of Materials Chemistry at Uppsala University who works at the Ångström Advanced Battery Centre.

The study combined various radiation scattering techniques: X-ray analyses were made in Uppsala, Sweden and neutron results came from a large research facility, the Institut Laue Langevin, in Grenoble, France.

“The study demonstrates the importance of using these infrastructures to tackle problems in materials science,” says Professor Adrian Rennie. “These instruments are expensive but are necessary to understand such complex systems as these batteries. Many different reactions happen at the same time and materials are formed and can disappear quickly during operation.”

The study was carried-out as part of a co-operation with Scania CV AB.

“Electric power is needed for the heavy truck business and not just personal vehicles. They must keep up with developments of a range of different batteries that may soon become highly relevant,” says Daniel Brandell.

Ola eyes 5-minute electric scooter charging with StoreDot battery tech

Could this audacious electric scooter be the Honda Cub of the 21st Century? Ola is betting big on the S1

Ola is building the world’s largest motorcycle “Futurefactory,” and planning a staggeringly massive push into India’s electric scooter market. It has now made a “multi-million dollar investment” in an ultra-fast charging battery company from Israel.

It’s no understatement to say the Ola S1 could end up being one of the most important vehicles in the world, full stop. It’s a feature-packed, highway-capable electric scooter designed to sell from as little as US$1,345 – or just under 100,000 Indian Rupees. Even at double the money, it’d be a steal for commuters in Western cities.

Part of that rock-bottom price comes from serious volume; Ola is building the biggest motorcycle factory in history. The Futurefactory under construction now is a colossal, 500-acre, carbon-negative production complex that will be capable of pouring out up to an astonishing 10 million bikes per year once it reaches full capacity – that’s around 15 percent of the entire current global motorcycle production run. So there’s enormous hopes and dreams behind these scoots, and considerable pressure to get the S1 right.

Now, it seems Ola has made a move that could give its bikes some extreme fast-charging capabilities.

The company has made a “multi-million dollar investment” in Israel’s StoreDot, which makes it a “strategic partner” and will allow it to “incorporate and manufacture StoreDot’s fast charging technologies for future vehicles in India.”

Ola’s Futurefactory, now under construction, will be the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturing plant, capable of building 10 million bikes a year

StoreDot claims that its nanodot-enhanced, silicon-dominant anode, XFC lithium-ion cells will go into mass manufacture in 2024 as pouch cells and 4680-family cylinder cells, and they’ll initially be able to deliver 100 miles (160 km) of scooter range in a 5-minute charge, with an impressive 300 Wh/kg specific energy – considerably more energy-dense than today’s state of the art commercial cells. 

Its second-gen solid-state cells, slated for 2028, promise a sky-high 450 Wh/kg, so they’ll be significantly lighter, as well as even faster to charge – StoreDot claims 100 miles in 3 minutes.

And in 10 years’ time, the company says it’s got plans for a “post-lithium” design capable of 100-mile charges in 2 minutes, with a monstrous 550 Wh/kg of energy on board. Such is the “clear, hype-free technology roadmap” that StoreDot CEO Doron Myersdorf promises partners.

“The future of EVs lies in better, faster and high energy density batteries, capable of rapid charging and delivering higher range,” said Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal in a press release. “We are increasing our investments in core cell and battery technologies and ramping up our in-house capabilities and global talent hiring, as well as partnering with global companies doing cutting edge work in this field. Our partnership with StoreDot, a pioneer of extreme fast charging battery technologies, is of strategic importance and a first of many.”

It all sounds great, but the big unknown here is whether StoreDot will actually finally deliver on its fast-charge battery promises.

We first encountered this company in 2014, when it was planning mass production of smartphone batteries with 30-second charging timeswithin two years. These did not materialize. By 2017, it was saying it’d have 5-minute electric car battery packs popping up as OEM equipment by 2020. These have not yet materialized.

The company has been sending sample batteries to EV manufacturers for testing. “We are not releasing a lab prototype,” Myersdorf told The Guardian in January 2021. “We are releasing engineering samples from a mass production line.

This demonstrates it is feasible and it’s commercially ready.” And yet the nanodot technology in these samples was based on highly expensive germanium, rather than the cheap and widely available silicon, indicating that it was perhaps not quite ready.

Still, StoreDot has taken on at least US$190 million in investments and formed similar strategic partnerships with companies including VinFast, BP, Daimler, Samsung, TDK and Eve Energy – so along with Ola Electric, plenty of serious players have liked what they’ve seen enough to put their money on the line. Last November, StoreDot announced that Eve Energy had managed to produce “A-series samples” of the silicon-dominant batteries in a factory in China. 

We’d all like to see EV charge times drop to the level where a top-up takes no longer than filling a tank of gas. Will StoreDot be the company that makes that a reality? Stay tuned!

Source: StoreDot

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC’s) – Producing Electricity While Treating Water Waste

Study: Self-supporting nitrogen-doped reduced graphene Oxide@Carbon nanofiber hybrid membranes as high-performance integrated air cathodes in Microbial fuel cells. Image Credit: Peddalanka Ramesh Babu/Shutterstock.com

In an article available as a pre-proof in the journal Carbon, researchers used electrospinning methodologies to develop an air cathode built of self-sustaining nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide@carbon nanofiber (N rGO@CNF) hybrid sheets suitable for microbial fuel cells.

Microbial Fuel Cells for Bioenergy Production

It is critical to develop eco-friendly and sustainable technology in light of rising climate change consequences and global energy demand.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs), a developing biological electrolytic system with good prospects as a maintainable bioenergy generation system, have piqued scientists’ curiosity for the past few years since they can concurrently produce electricity as well as treat water waste by transforming chemical energy contained in organic material to electricity with the help of microbes and fuel (usually wastewater).

MFC outperforms alternative methods for producing energy from biological material in terms of operating and functional characteristics, such as excellent direct effectiveness, ambient temperature functioning, and no need for supplementary energy or gas treatment.

Composition of a Typical MFC

The organic materials undergo oxidation in the anode compartment, generating protons and electrons. The electrons then move via an exterior circuit, yielding electrical energy, whereas the protons move to the cathode compartment via the electrolyte, in which they interact with the electron acceptors (O₂). This results in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which produces water using a two-electron or four-electron mechanism.

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The electron receptors in the cathodic chamber have a critical role in energy production via microbial fuel cells; oxygen from the air is the best electron recipient because it is readily available and inexpensive. Since the slow ORR conducted in the cathodic chamber is considered the main hurdle, and improving ORR may considerably boost the total MFC effectiveness, MFC output is highly reliant on electrode performance, particularly that of the cathode.

** Graphical Abstract

How to Improve Performance of Air Cathode in MFCs

In a singular chambered microbial fuel cell, the typical air cathode comprises of three parts: the catalytic layer (CL), the substrate or the supporting layer (SL), and the conducting gas diffusion layer (GDL). Since the effectiveness of the air cathode is mostly determined by the catalytic layer, substantial research into catalyst designing and development has been carried out to enhance ORR taking place in the air cathode.

Thanks to their high catalysis performance, composites based on platinum (Pt) are currently the most widely utilized catalytic materials, but their industrial applications have been restricted by their significant prices, limited availability, and vulnerability to deactivation induced by biofouling and poisons in MFC settings.

Carbonaceous materials have come to the fore as excellent air cathode catalytic materials for microbial fuel cells as compared to platinum and other metallic catalysts, owing to their inexpensive prices, great stability, toxin tolerance, and excellent catalysis performance in ORR, making them viable substitutes to Pt-based catalysts.

Influence of Heteroatom Doping

One of the most successful ways for improving the ORR performance of carbonaceous materials has been established to be heteroatom doping. Injecting nitrogen (N) into the carbon framework activates electrons by creating charge spots, resulting in increased ORR catalysis performance.

Owing to the ease of agglomeration of carbon-based nanomaterials, which can obstruct catalytically active spots, the ORR effectiveness of carbonaceous composites doped with heteroatoms is still not optimal. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) is presently utilized as an alternative form of carbon-based material to produce carbon-carbon hybrids for ORR usage. The blend of rGO and N-injected nanocarbons has a higher conductance, meaning more active spots for ORR are available.

Key Findings of the Study

In this paper, self-sustaining N-injected rGO@CNF hybridized membranes were effectively constructed using an electrospinning approach involving the addition of graphene oxide to a polyacrylonitrile (PAN) mixture followed by thermal processing in an NH₃ setting.

The constructed rGO@CNFs can be used as embedded cathodes in microbial fuel cells directly. Their architectures, make-up, and texture were studied, as well as their electrolytic characteristics and MFC effectiveness, which were examined against pure NCNF and CAC electrodes.

The test results showed that rGO@CNFs outperformed the pure NCNF and CAC in terms of MFC effectiveness and ORR activation. In addition, the quantity of rGO incorporated in CNF had a significant impact on ORR activity and MFC effectiveness. On the basis of these findings, electrospun self-sustaining rGO@CNF hybridized membranes are suggested to be viable direct cathode options in MFCs.

Reference

Xu, M., Wu, L., Zhu, M., Wang, Z., Huang, Z.-H., & Wang, M.-X. (2022). Self-supporting nitrogen-doped reduced graphene Oxide@Carbon nanofiber hybrid membranes as high-performance integrated air cathodes in Microbial fuel cells. Carbon. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008622322001968?via%3Dihub

Ionic liquids give a push to next-gen solid-state lithium metal batteries

Ionic liquids give push to next-gen solid-state lithium metal batteries. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University

Since their first commercialization, rechargeable Li-ion batteries have dominated the portable electronicsmarket for the last three decades. But as we look for better solutions with higher energy density, scientists have been turning to solid-state lithium metal batteries.

Li metal batteries potentially have a much higher energy density than their Li-ion counterparts, but technical issues keep solid-state lithium metal batteries from making their way into demanding applications. It is difficult to achieve good contact between electrodes and solid electrolytes. Any surface roughness on either side leads to high interfacial resistance, which plagues battery performance.

Researchers at Japan’s Tokyo Metropolitan University have been developing new ways of improving the contact between the cathode and solid-state electrolyte in solid-state lithium metal batteries. And now, they have succeeded in creating a new quasi-solid-state cathode, with significantly reduced problematic resistance between key components. The new quasi-solid-state lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) cathode contains a room-temperature ionic liquid, which is salt in a liquid state.

By adding an ionic liquid, their modified cathode could maintain excellent contact with the electrolyte.

The addition of an ionic liquid to the cathode material fills structural voids and provides a better interface with the solid electrolyte. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University

Ionic liquids consist of positive and negative ions; they can also transport ions and fill tiny voids at the cathode and the solid electrolyte interface. With the voids filled, the interfacial resistance was significantly reduced. Ionic liquids are not only ionically conductive but almost non-volatile and usually non-flammable.

The team demonstrated a prototype battery featuring this novel, quasi-solid-state cathode that showed impressive stability, with 80% capacity retention after 100 charge and discharge cycles at an elevated temperature of 60°C.

Though finding a better ionic liquid that doesn’t degrade as easily remains challenging, the idea promises new directions in solid lithium battery development for practical applications.

Solar Cell Solutions to Industry’s Biggest Hurdle – Degradation – UCLA Samueli School of Engineering

Materials scientists at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and colleagues from five other universities around the world have discovered the major reason why perovskite solar cells — which show great promise for improved energy-conversion efficiency — degrade in sunlight, causing their performance to suffer over time.  

The team successfully demonstrated a simple manufacturing adjustment to fix the cause of the degradation, clearing the biggest hurdle toward the widespread adoption of the thin-film solar cell technology. 

  

A research paper detailing the findings was published in Nature. The research is led by Yang Yang, a UCLA Samueli professor of materials science and engineering and holder of the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr., Endowed Chair. The co-first authors are Shaun Tan and Tianyi Huang, both recent UCLA Samueli Ph.D. graduates whom Yang advised. 

Perovskites are a group of materials that have the same atomic arrangement or crystal structure as the mineral calcium titanium oxide. A subgroup of perovskites, metal halide perovskites, are of great research interest because of their promising application for energy-efficient, thin-film solar cells.  

 

Perovskite-based solar cells could be manufactured at much lower costs than their silicon-based counterparts, making solar energy technologies more accessible if the commonly known degradation under long exposure to illumination can be properly addressed. For further information see the IDTechEx report on Energy Harvesting Microwatt to Gigawatt: Opportunities 2020-2040. 

   

“Perovskite-based solar cells tend to deteriorate in sunlight much faster than their silicon counterparts, so their effectiveness in converting sunlight to electricity drops over the long term,” said Yang, who is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “However, our research shows why this happens and provides a simple fix. This represents a major breakthrough in bringing perovskite technology to commercialization and widespread adoption.” 

  

A common surface treatment used to remove solar cell defects involves depositing a layer of organic ions that makes the surface too negatively charged. The UCLA-led team found that while the treatment is intended to improve energy-conversion efficiency during the fabrication process of perovskite solar cells, it also unintentionally creates a more electron-rich surface — a potential trap for energy-carrying electrons. 

  

This condition destabilizes the orderly arrangement of atoms, and over time the perovskite solar cells become increasingly less efficient, ultimately making them unattractive for commercialization. 

  

Armed with this new discovery, the researchers found a way to address the cells’ long-term degradation by pairing the positively charged ions with negatively charged ones for surface treatments. The switch enables the surface to be more electron-neutral and stable, while preserving the integrity of the defect-prevention surface treatments. 

  

 The team tested the endurance of their solar cells in a lab under accelerated ageing conditions and 24/7 illumination designed to mimic sunlight. The cells managed to retain 87% of their original sunlight-to-electricity conversion performance for more than 2,000 hours. For comparison, solar cells manufactured without the fix dropped to 65% of their original performance after testing over the same time and conditions. 

  

“Our perovskite solar cells are among the most stable in efficiency reported to date,” Tan said. “At the same time, we’ve also laid new foundational knowledge, on which the community can further develop and refine our versatile technique to design even more stable perovskite solar cells.” 

  

Source and top image: University of California Los Angeles 

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MIT Creates Waterless Cleaning System to Remove Dust on Solar Panels: Maintains Peak Efficiency and Service Longevity

New waterless cleaning method removes dust on solar installations in water-limited regions, improving overall efficiency. Credit: MIT

The accumulation of dust on solar panels or mirrors is already a significant issue – it can reduce the output of photovoltaic panels. So regular cleaning is essential for such installations to maintain their peak efficiency. However, cleaning solar panels is currently estimated to use billions of gallons of water per year, and attempts at waterless cleaning are labor-intensive and tend to cause irreversible scratching of the surfaces, which also reduces efficiency. Robots can be useful; recently, a Belgian startup developed HELIOS, an automated cleaning service for solar panels.

Now, a team of researchers at MIT has now developed a waterless cleaning method to remove dust on solar installations in water-limited regions, improving overall efficiency.

The waterless, no-contact system uses electrostatic repulsion to cause dust particles to detach without the need for water or brushes. To activate the system, a simple electrode passes just above the solar panel‘s surface. The electrical charge it releases repels dust particles from the panels. The system can be operated automatically using a simple electric motor and guide rails along the side of the panel.

The team designed and fabricated an electrostatic dust removal system for a lab-scale solar panel. The glass plate on top of the solar panel was coated with a 5-nm-thick transparent and conductive layer of aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) using atomic layer deposition (ALD) and formed the bottom electrode. The top electrode is mobile to avoid shading and moves along the panel during cleaning with a linear guide stepper motor mechanism. The system can be operated at a voltage of around 12V and can recover 95% of the lost power after cleaning for particle sizes greater than around 30 μm.

“We performed experiments at varying humidities from 5% to 95%,” says MIT graduate student Sreedath Panat. “As long as the ambient humidity is greater than 30%, you can remove almost all of the particles from the surface, but as humidity decreases, it becomes harder.”

By eliminating the dependency on trucked-in water, by eliminating the build-up of dust that can contain corrosive compounds, and by lowering the overall operational costs, such cleaning systems have the potential to significantly improve the overall efficiency and reliability of solar installations Kripa Varanasi says.

Monash Biomedicine Develops New Approach for Bolstering T-Cells Ability to Fight Cancer

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A collaborative study led by the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) has discovered a new immune checkpoint that may be exploited for cancer therapy

The study shows that by inhibiting the protein tyrosine phosphatase PTP1B in T cells, the body’s immune response to cancer can be mobilized, helping to repress tumor growth.

T cells are an essential part of the body’s immune system, helping not only to kill invading pathogens, such as viruses but also cancer cells. However, this study has shown that the abundance of PTP1B in T cells that infiltrate tumors is increased, thereby restraining the ability of T cells to attack tumor cells and combat cancer. These findings have identified PTP1B as an intracellular brake, or checkpoint, reminiscent of the cell surface checkpoint PD-1—the blockade of which has revolutionized cancer therapy. 

The findings are published in the prestigious journal Cancer Discovery.

Using mice, scientists from Monash BDI, in conjunction with colleagues at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, found that by inhibiting PTP1B, using an early-stage injectable drug candidate that has previously been shown to be safe and well-tolerated in humans, the cancer-fighting ability of T cells is enhanced, repressing tumor growth.

Remarkably, the authors showed that the inhibition of this intracellular checkpoint, PTP1B, can also enhance the response to a widely used cancer therapy that blocks the PD-1 checkpoint on the surface of T cells.

Senior author Professor Tony Tiganis says that although the blockade of PD-1 can be highly effective against many tumors, not all patients respond and the development of resistance is common. This is true even for immunotherapy-sensitive cancers, such as melanoma. Approaches that can enhance the effectiveness or extend the utility of PD-1 checkpoint blockade are highly sought after in the clinic.

“While more pre-clinical work is needed, our findings show that superior outcomes were achieved when we combined PTP1B inhibition with existing immunotherapies in mice,” said Professor Tiganis.

In addition, beyond enhancing the response to PD-1 blockade, the authors showed that the inhibition of PTP1B also significantly enhanced the effectiveness of cellular therapies using Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells.

CAR T cells are T cells derived from a patient’s blood that are modified in the lab so that they produce a man-made receptor to help them better identify tumor cells and then injected back into the patient. 

CAR T cells have been highly effective against some blood cancers; however, this success has not, as yet, been replicated in solid tumors. The authors demonstrate that the deletion or inhibition of PTP1B can dramatically enhance the ability of CAR T cells to attack solid tumors in mice, including breast cancer. 

“To advance this work, a key next step will be to further define the impact of PTP1B deletion in CAR T and conventional T cells in humans. There remains an urgent clinical need to identify and validate cellular targets to revive and sustain T cell responses in cancer,” said first author Dr. Florian Wiede.

Professor Tiganis and Dr. Wiede will also continue to collaborate with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and DepYmed Inc., a US-based company developing PTP1B inhibitors, to test in their preclinical models orally bioavailable PTP1B inhibitor drug candidates as novel checkpoint inhibitors. These findings could form the basis of future clinical trials.

Cancer continues to be a major cause of illness and death in Australia, accounting for 30 percent of all deaths in Australia in 2020. The AIHW cancer in Australia report estimates that around 185,000 cases of cancer will be diagnosed in 2031 and that between 2022 and 2031, a total of around 1.7 million cases of cancer will be diagnosed.

The full paper in Cancer Discoveryjournal is titled “PTP1B is an intracellular checkpoint that limits T cell and CAR T cell anti-tumor immunity.”

ONE (Our Next Energy) Raises $65M to Accelerate Plans for First US factory – Tests New Prototype Battery in Tesla Model S – Achieves 752 Mile Range

ONE’s battery powers electric vehicle 752 miles without recharging. Credit: ONE

Michigan-based energy storage technology company, Our Next Energy (ONE), has raised an additional $65 million in a new funding round led by BMW i Ventures. The new funding round will allow ONE to expand its operations and prepare for increasing demand and customer activity.

It also announced that it has signed contracts with four customers totaling more than 25 GWh of energy storage capacity over the next five years, equating to approximately 300,000 electric vehicle battery packs. This development allows ONE to begin the process of site selection for its first US-based battery factory.

Last year, the company demonstrated its proof-of-concept Gemini battery that powered an electric vehicle 752-mile (1,210-km) without recharging. In late December. It retrofitted a Tesla Model S with an experimental battery for real-world road testing across Michigan, where the test vehicle achieved 882 miles (1,419 km) at an average speed of 55 mph (88.5 km/h).

“This most recent investment accelerates the timeline for ONE’s Gemini battery technology following our recent 752-mile range demonstration. We are excited to have BMW i Ventures lead this round, and we are thrilled to welcome Coatue Management and their support as we raise the capital required to build a U.S. cell factory that supports Aries and Gemini,” said Mujeeb Ijaz, Founder, and CEO of ONE.

The ONE battery factory wants to accelerate electrification with safer, more powerful energy storage technologies that use more sustainable raw materials while creating a reliable, low-cost, and conflict-free supply chain.

ONE will begin evaluating site locations for its US-based battery factory, where production will start on its first product, a smaller battery cell called Aries, in late 2022. It expects to demonstrate a production prototype of the Gemini dual-chemistry battery in 2023.

Read About ONE (Our Next Energy)

A Potentially ‘Powerful Alliance – ‘Sony and Honda Join Forces to develop Electric Vehicles

The electric car market is creating alliances that were unpredictable until yesterday. The most recent example is Japan’s manufacturing giant Honda motors and Sony Group Corporation that, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a joint venture through which they plan to engage in the joint development and sales of high value-added battery electric vehicles (EVs) and commercialize them in conjunction with providing mobility services.

The two companies will proceed with a goal of establishing the New Company within 2022, and the sales of the first EV model are expected to start in 2025.

In 2020, Sony unveiled a prototype car, the Vision-S, and soon after, the company was looking for an important partner with experience in the mobility sector. At this year’s CES, the company unveiled a new concept SUV dubbed Vision-S 02. It is now pressing ahead with its vision through the new partnership with Honda.

The agreement also opens the doors to other partners interested in the electric mobility revolution, which also counts on technological giants such as Alphabet with Waymo platform and Apple with the elusive Titan Project. There are also significant investments underway in electric cars by Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, and other famous car brands.

                      Sony ‘Vision S -02: Concept Model

The roles that the two partners will play are very clear: Honda will handle the development and production of the cars and after-sales services that are essential for customer satisfaction. Sony, on the other hand, will deal with technologies present in cars, including onboard entertainment, a sector in which Sony boasts a world leadership.

The New Company is expected to plan, design, develop, and sell the electric vehicles but not own and operate manufacturing facilities, so Honda is expected to be responsible for manufacturing the first EV model at its vehicle manufacturing plant. It is expected that a mobility service platform will be developed by Sony and made available for the New Company.

“Sony’s Purpose is to ‘fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, Representative Corporate Executive Officer, Chairman, President, and CEO, Sony Group Corporation. “Through this alliance with Honda, which has accumulated extensive global experience and achievements in the automobile industry over many years and continues to make revolutionary advancements in this field, we intend to build on our vision to ‘make the mobility space an emotional one,’ and contribute to the evolution of mobility centered around safety, entertainment, and adaptability.”

Green hydrogen: the world’s largest project announced in Texas

The largest green hydrogen project in the world has just been unveiled! Named Hydrogen City, it will produce several million tons of green hydrogen every year…

With a capacity of 60 GW, Hydrogen City is a project led by the American startup Green Hydrogen International (GHI), which was founded in 2019 by renewable energy expert Brian Maxwell.

This mega-plant will be located in Duval County, a sparsely populated area located in southern Texas. It will be powered by wind and solar energy. Pipelines will transport the hydrogen produced to the port cities of Corpus Christi about 145 km away and Brownsville on the Mexican border.

The project will also have a cavern located inside the Salt Dome of Piedras Pintas that will allow on-site storage of the hydrogen produced. GHI claims that it will be possible to create about fifty similar caves in this area. This will allow Hydrogen City to store up to 6 TWh of energy.

Hydrogen City, Texas – World’s Largest Green Hydrogen Production and Storage Hub

A colossal production

Once finalized, Hydrogen City is expected to produce more than 2.5 million tons of green hydrogen per year, which currently corresponds to nearly 3.5% of global gray hydrogen production.

The first phase of 2 GW of the project will begin in 2026 with the creation of two storage caverns.