I paid a visit to Wilton International at the invitation of Supercritical Solutions Ltd.
Green hydrogen
Supercritical Solutions is attempting to build the world’s first high-pressure, efficient electrolyser for the production of green hydrogen. The company has an office and labs at the Wilton International site, near Redcar.
My visit
I visited the company’s office for a briefing, followed by a visit to the technical development area. My hosts were Luke Tan, the Chief Product Officer, and Dr Abi Mountain, one of the lead researchers. We were also accompanied by Mick Larkin, who was recruited locally. Mick is a 30-year veteran of the Teesside chemical industry and has spent much of his career at the Wilton site. He’s a health and safety expert, valuable when dealing with a commodity such as hydrogen. Mick was proud of the fact that there have never been any injuries on his watch.
A portrait of the team
Mick, Abi and Luke are pictured from left to right below, in their ‘Supercritical’ T-shirts, outside the Technical Development Area. The man in the suit is Chris Rowell, head of Net Zero at the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA). The photo was taken during a visit by a delegation from the TVCA, which took place earlier in the same day as my visit.
Unique Selling Point
So, what is Supercritical’s unique selling point? Luke Tan explained that the company aims to supply green hydrogen at high pressure, about 200 bar. Most developers supply hydrogen at much lower pressures. Hydrogen applications usually require pressures of 200 bar or above. Getting the hydrogen up to this pressure is an energy-intensive business. For the sake of comparison, normal atmospheric pressure is one bar.
How does it work?
The details are confidential, but by increasing the pressure of the water going in, rather than compressing the gas coming out, Supercritical claims that it is able to produce high pressure hydrogen and oxygen much more efficiently and safely than competitors. However, it’s not commercially viable to capture the oxygen at this stage. For now, it’s essentially a by-product, and is vented into the atmosphere once separated from the hydrogen.
Other benefits
Supercritical doesn’t use PFAS (forever chemicals) or iridium in its electrolyser module. Most green hydrogen processes involve the use of PFAS. The company claims energy efficiency gains of 20 to 30% versus traditional technology.
Technical development area
The Supercritical team took us on a tour of the technical development area. The company has built a small-scale green hydrogen production facility. Each of the labs here has a ‘blast bay’ attached. Research can safely be carried out in the labs, without the danger of explosion. The entrance to the blast bay can be seen below. An industrial blast curtain is pulled across when the bay is in use. Luke explained that the curtain was added by Supercritical when its risk assessment identified that the door was a weak spot for blast protection. You can’t be too careful with hydrogen.
Inside the laboratory
This photo isn’t of much use to the average layman, but it gives an indication of the complexity of the hydrogen production process.
Whisky galore
Supercritical has been at this for a while. In 2021, the company received a government grant of £53,000 for the WhiskHy project, a scheme to produce Scotch whisky using Supercritical’s green hydrogen technology.
Private investment
The company has attracted private investment too. Supercritical raised £14mn last year, in a ‘Series A’ investment round, co-led by Shell Ventures B.V. (“Shell”) and Toyota Ventures.
When will this be scaled up?
The company hopes to complete a commercial pilot plant in 2027, followed by full-scale commercial production in 2029. But Luke Tan explained that this won’t necessarily happen at Wilton, or even in the UK. The decision will largely depend on whether the UK can get its high electricity costs under control.
Hydrogen hype
You can read here about my scepticism regarding another recent Teesside green hydrogen project. We’ve heard a lot of promises of a ‘green revolution’ on Teesside, many of which haven’t been realised. Green hydrogen can be part of the journey to Net Zero. But we still haven’t seen it at scale on Teesside, or anywhere in the UK, and we’ve got to start seeing results soon.
A word of thanks
Thanks to Wilton International, Pioneer Labs and the team at Supercritical Solutions Ltd for facilitating my visit.
