While working in the hydrogen industry in China, Alex Fang realised that the real bottlenecks limiting the scale of hydrogen application are the safety and costs in the storage and transportation chain. He thought technology could drive down costs and enhance safety.
“However, I could not create technology from scratch. So, we conducted in-depth research with a couple of my business partners, searching extensively globally for application cases that had attempted to use magnesium alloy. In April 2023, we officially rolled out our magnesium-based solid-state technology for storage and transportation,” he recalls.
That was the beginning of Hydrexia.
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Founded in 2016, Hydrexia provides solutions for hydrogen production, storage, transportation, and end-use applications. Based in China with offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia, it enables users to store hydrogen more economically with less space and weight, at much-reduced pressure and with increased safety.
Magnesium-based hydride’s non-flammable and non-explosive properties allow for ambient pressure and temperature transportation without leakage or evaporation concerns. This ensures secure hydrogen storage and transport, even in densely populated areas.
“Our solution outperforms conventional industry approaches in safety, storage density, ease of use, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness. It is designed to mitigate the limitations of the conventional hydrogen storage methods,” claims Fang.
“In addition, our storage technology can effectively eliminate impurities such as carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S), resulting in an improved purity level of hydrogen. The hydrogen released from magnesium-based hydride meets stringent purity requirements for various industrial uses, including fuel cell applications,” he adds.
The startup serves customers across the entire industry value chain, covering hydrogen purification, storage and transportation, and end-use applications (upstream, middle stream, and downstream).
Fang claims Hydrexia has built a solid customer base, including Fortune 500 companies across China, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe, and the US.
According to Fang, Hydrexia has faced many obstacles in the different phases of its development, particularly in the early stages, including finding a proper testing facility for its R&D and lack of funding.
The company has thus far completed four rounds of private equity financing, raising RMB500 million (US$70 million). It is now raising a strategic financing round, which is expected to be closed by the end of January 2024.
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The money will be used for R&D and to improve the current magnesium-based solid-state technology.
In October, Hydrexia became one of the 25 Asian companies graduating from the PETRONAS FutureTech 3.0 programme.
“Our mission is to empower the transition to sustainable green energy. As a technology-driven company, we will continue to embark on the path of technological innovations to serve hydrogen storage and transportation needs,” he concludes.
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