Clean, reliable, local: this is the liberation of hydrogen
For too long, hydrogen has been held back by unreliable, traditional production techniques, but that’s now changing. Our patented technology is transforming the way hydrogen is produced – making it cost-effective, accessible and suitable to more sectors than ever before.
The world has been making hydrogen using electrolysers which split water into hydrogen and oxygen for over a century. But until very recently the process was expensive, and the membranes at their heart can clog up and fail. I’ve experienced firsthand the challenge of trying to find a solution when a membrane has failed in a middle eastern desert – let’s just say it wasn’t easy!
At Clean Power Hydrogen (CPH2), we’ve made it our mission to eradicate these problems by developing a membrane-free electrolyser which can deliver the lowest levelised cost of hydrogen production at this scale. Our modular technology can be used by industry to make and store hydrogen locally in the amounts needed, in multiples of 450kg per day, per MW installed. For decentralised applications that are critical to day-to-day business operations, on-site hydrogen and oxygen production makes a lot more sense than long term ‘take or pay’ contracts shipped in from around the world. You can make it where you need it.
No membrane means no expensive and hard to source precious metals like iridium or platinum, or the PFA ‘forever chemicals’, which are banned in several countries. And of course, it means a more reliable way of making hydrogen overall because there is no membrane to fail. This also allows CPH2 to quote a 12-year life on its electrolysis stack.
Solving business challenges
So, what difference does this make in the real world? Data centres are a prime example of where modular hydrogen supply is going to be transformative. Until now, avoiding disruption and ensuring uptime has meant building in a complex network of backup systems from diesel generators to redundant grid connections. But these systems can still fail. The Uptime Institute’s 2025 data centre survey found that one in 10 outages cause serious or severe disruption. Locally made, clean and cost-effective hydrogen can be the solution, providing long duration storage of backup energy supply when combined with a fuel cell, and giving data centre operators the peace of mind of knowing that they can remain online if a crisis strikes, from grid failures to natural disasters.
CPH2’s electrolysis technology is also a gamechanger for renewable energy. No membrane means there is no blocker to producing low-cost hydrogen using variable power from wind and solar. The Times reported that Britain is paying £380 million a year to switch off wind farms because there is nowhere for the excess power to go. Just think how much hydrogen that waste electricity could create with a CPH2 electrolyser.
Of course, it’s not just about hydrogen. Our MFE220 one megawatt unit was validated recently as part of an independently witnessed test, showing it can produce not just high purity hydrogen at over 99.999%, but high purity oxygen too at 99.7% – up to medical grade when specified in advance.
High purity oxygen is a critical resource for the healthcare and life sciences industries. Without it, patients wouldn’t be able to access life-saving treatments and pharmaceuticals manufacturers couldn’t develop the small-molecule drugs that rely on oxygen as a structural component. Having reliable access to oxygen can quite literally be a matter of life and death. During COVID some hospitals ran short of oxygen. Producing it on site would allow the healthcare sector to be self-sufficient in future and operationally resilient in meeting clinical goals.
A new way of thinking about hydrogen
There’s been a lot of exciting discussion about the potential for electrolysis and hydrogen manufacturing, but some critics claim that this talk isn’t turning into a lot of action. In truth the hydrogen market has grown every year according to the International Energy Agency’s September 2025 hydrogen report. However, it’s fair to say that some of the older approaches to hydrogen production didn’t match the hype. We’re changing that and bringing hydrogen production to where industry needs it, from harvesting the full benefits of renewable energy investment, to keeping data centres running and providing high-purity oxygen for critical healthcare applications. This is a new era. This is the liberation of hydrogen.
By Richard Scott, CCO