It was a mistake that was before his time.
Between 2002 and 2005, engineers with the Techint group tried to mark in a new electric arched oven for a steelman when they noticed something strange. The carbon electrodes, instead of breaking, grew larger.
The team inadvertently created what is known as a pyrolysis reaction, which essentially burns something in the absence of oxygen. In this case, the oven divided methane into pure hydrogen and pure carbon. The team reported their discovery inside and then essentially forgot about it.
“At that time, no one cared, because no one cared about methane -pirolysis, hydrogen,” Massimiliano Pieri, Director General of Tulum Energy, told Techcrunch. The experiment was largely forgotten for the next 20 years.
But a few years ago, investors for the corporate VC arm of Techint Group, Techenergy Ventures, looked through the landscape for new ways to produce hydrogen from methane without the usual contamination.
Techint’s investors didn’t have to look far away. “Someone in the company noticed,” but we already have that. We have this discovery, “Pieri said.
So the conglomerate pushed the idea and tore Tulum to make the accidental discovery in viable business. Recently, Tulum has closed a signature of a $ 27 million seed round led by TDK Ventures and CDP Venture Capital, the company exclusively told Techcrunch. Participated with Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, Myth Tech Ventures, and Techenergy Ventures.
Tulum is not the only boot chasing metal pyrolysis as a way to produce hydrogen. Modern hydrogen, melting industries and monolith are among Tulum’s competitors. The reaction has attracted attention due to its ability to produce hydrogen out of cheap, widely available natural gas without any emissions of carbon dioxide. In pyrolysis, methane is destroyed in the absence of oxygen, the only products are hydrogen -gas and dust of solid carbon, both of sale.
But Tulum differs in some ways. For one, it does not need to use expensive catalysts to encourage the pyrolysis reaction that some of its competitors require. In its use of the electric arched oven, Tulum also uses widely used – if modified – technology.
“This gives you a great start,” Pieri said.
Tulum will use the seed funding to build a pilot plant in Mexico along with an existing Techint Group steel plant. If all goes well, the steel plant could buy hydrogen and carbon directly from Tulum to use in its operations.
Pieri said that in full -scale production, a commercial plant would generate two tons of hydrogen and 600 tons of carbon daily.
Tulum hopes that its commercial scale plant will produce one kilogram of hydrogen for about $ 1.50 in the United States, where electricity and natural gas are cheap. At that price, it is only 50 cents more than most hydrogen made of natural gas today, and it significantly underestimates some of the main green hydrogen methods. This is before the company sells any carbon that is generated by its process.
Not bad for an almost forgotten mistake.
