VSParticle, a Delft-based startup, has secured €6.5 million in funding to advance the development of their innovative nano printer technology. The startup’s technology enables materials to be broken down to the size of nanoparticles and produced at the push of a button, allowing university researchers and commercial R&D teams to experiment to create new materials; materials that will power next-generation products.
It can take up to 10 years to discover new materials in a lab and a further five to bring them to mass production, but VSP’s technology is supporting teams to reduce the overall time of material discovery down to only one year.
Electrolyzers and green hydrogen
In particular, VSP’s technology is enabling the mass production of catalyst-coated Porous Transport Layers (PTLs), which are the key components in electrolyzers and are essential to the production of green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is essential to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and power a more sustainable future for industries such as shipping, transport, heating, and aviation, yet the process currently relies on using scarce resources including platinum and iridium. Customers are using VSP printers to develop new material combinations for PTLs, with a predicted 10x savings in scarce metals, such as iridium, and introduce new products faster and cheaper.
2027
By 2027, the first components that have been developed using VSP’s technology should be in the market, creating the end product that will support green hydrogen production. This will support global net zero goals – the IEA estimates that the world will need to produce 306 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, with the EU and Japan, in particular, focusing on prioritizing this clean energy source.
Related Posts
