Mattiq, the clean chemistry company, today announced a strategic partnership with Heraeus Precious Metals, a global leader in the precious metals industry, to develop and commercialize advanced electrocatalyst materials for green hydrogen production. The companies will engineer low-iridium catalysts to significantly reduce the amount of this rare and critical raw material for proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzer manufacturing before expanding into other innovative electrochemical solutions.
Iridium is indispensable for the green energy transition, as PEM water electrolysis, one of the most promising technologies for producing zero-carbon (green) hydrogen, depends on its availability. Iridium is one of Earth’s rarest naturally occurring elements, making the efficient use of this critical resource a requirement to serve increasing demand for hydrogen production and other applications. With current iridium loading requirements, PEM electrolyzers will be limited in scale of annual deployment. Solutions are therefore needed to reduce iridium content in electrocatalysts without sacrificing performance.
In their collaboration, Mattiq and Heraeus Precious Metals will shorten the traditional R&D-to-commercialization timeline, rapidly advancing low-iridium catalysts from prototype to industrial-scale solutions.
Mattiq is a world leader in electrochemical systems design and is on a mission to decarbonize the foundational chemicals upon which our world is built. The company leverages its deep expertise in nanotechnology, chemistry, and artificial intelligence to rapidly synthesize, characterize, and integrate novel catalysts into innovative electrochemical systems. The foundation of this partnership is Mattiq’s previously announced completion of the world’s most comprehensive study of low-iridium catalysts for PEM water electrolysis, an effort that synthesized and characterized more than one million unique catalyst materials – three orders of magnitude more than all possibilities previously evaluated.
Heraeus Precious Metals is a world leader in precious metals reclamation, processing, and catalyst manufacturing. Its dedicated Hydrogen Systems business line is spearheading the introduction of low-iridium catalysts for PEM electrolysis globally. The company identified this partnership as an opportunity to accelerate the speed at which its innovations come to market and meet the increasing needs of its extensive customer base. As an expert in manufacturing of advanced precious metal based catalysts, Heraeus brings the experience and capability to develop the identified solutions further, verify their feasibility for large scale manufacturing, and to deliver an end product at industrial scale and reliability.
Together, the combination of cutting-edge R&D capability and world-class manufacturing will enable the two companies to radically reduce the cycle time of new innovations while delivering better results for their customers.
“We look forward to growing our partnership with Heraeus, learning from their deep experience in precious metals and electrocatalysis,” said Jeff Erhardt, CEO of Mattiq. “By combining our core competence in electrochemical systems design with Heraeus’ world-class capabilities in material development and catalyst manufacturing, we can jointly accelerate the development of high-performance, low-iridium catalysts that can lower the cost of electrolyzer manufacturing, ensuring their role in decarbonizing heavy industry. We are thrilled to partner with such a respected and trusted name in this field.”
“Through its industry-leading technology platform, Mattiq has established itself as a pioneer in materials science and catalyst development,” said Philipp Walter, EVP of Hydrogen Systems and Head of Innovation Management at Heraeus Precious Metals. “This partnership will bolster our position as a leading innovator in electrocatalysis and support our efforts in accelerating the energy transition.”
This partnership builds on the ongoing collaboration between Mattiq and Heraeus, first announced in 2023 when Mattiq verified the performance of a new ruthenium-based catalyst for PEM water electrolysis. The companies intend to expand their partnership into novel applications in electrocatalysis to accelerate the economically viable decarbonization of the chemical industry.
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