Singapore-based start-up DiviGas announced a financing round of $3.6 million for the first deployments and continued development of groundbreaking polymeric membranes.
Theses are designed for purifying hydrogen and other gases.
The funding was led by MANN+HUMMEL, Energy Revolution Ventures from the UK, Volta.VC from the United States of America and New York climate investor Albert Wenger.
Aligned with the COP26 summit which brings parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the start-up DiviGas has announced a $3.6 million seed round.
Motive behind the $3.6 million DiviGas round
The investment was in support of the commercialization of a new next-generation polymeric hydrogen separation membrane, which is a filter at a molecular level that purifies hydrogen.
Every year $110 billion of hydrogen gas is generated in refineries, chemical plants, and fertilizer plants of which 15% or $16 billion are lost to flaring.
Divi-H, DiviGas’ groundbreaking membrane, can recycle this previously unrecoverable hydrogen gas, netting the average refinery $3-6 million annually with a 2-3 times ROI.
Hydrogen production is a major emitter of CO2, generating about 1000 Million Tons or more than 2% of global CO2 emissions. DiviGas’ disruptive membrane enables the upgrade of existing hydrogen plants to generate so-called ‘blue’ hydrogen where the CO2 is captured.
According to the International Energy Agency by 2050, the world will make 200 million tons of blue hydrogen, all of which will need better capture technology.
DiviGas’ membrane, Divi-H, effectively tackles these two problems, with a radically new polymer composition inside modules containing tens of thousands of polymeric hollow fibers.
The result is an outstanding new performance due to its extra resistant properties (extreme acidic resistance with up to 150ºC versus 50ºC from other membranes).
Different stakeholders give their verdict
Michael Adams, the Director at MANN+HUMMEL Ventures had the following insights.
“DiviGas is an opportunity to bring sustainability to a crucial but often disregarded market in the existing hydrogen infrastructure. At MANN+HUMMEL, we are always seeking to support new, scalable separation technologies that can profitably make industries more sustainable.”
“Only through new technologies, deployed at pace and at scale, can we accelerate the advent of a sustainable world. We believe in supporting cutting-edge energy technologies, including hydrogen, that can deliver positive climate impact at scale.”
Adonis Pouroulis, the Chairman of Energy Revolution Ventures made some remarks.
“We are convinced that Hydrogen and CO2 separation is key for decarbonizing and growing the hydrogen economy, for which Divigas has a solution. Divigas have made progress on their separation technology, and we look forward to supporting their future developments.”
“This financing round will enable the production of Divi-H at a large scale, under the first two mass manufacturing lines. These will allow us to ship our first industrial-scale pilots with select partners and to continue the development of our next product, our CO2 purifying membrane.”
The innovative solution by DiviGas can operate in refineries, petrochemical plants, ammonia plants, methanol and metallurgical production, gasifiers, and many other production facilities.
The polymeric membrane, Divi-H, can be used in a wide range of applications, from fuel gas recovery to loop optimization through H2/CO adjustment and carbon capture.
DiviGas has several prizes to its name
The Liveability Challenge was in the Creative Destruction Labs, Entrepreneur First, SOSV’s HAX, ADMACOM, PLUG AND PLAY cohorts and were finalists at the 2020 New Energy Challenge.
The company was recently listed as one of the top Singapore-based CleanTech Companies and won the BloomBergNEF top prize at the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS).
