Along with other investors including, Temasel, Horizons Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Yara, the H2Pro technology holds significant potential and could send ripples throughout the hydrogen industry.

Central to the HG2Pro technology is being able to produce hydrogen from water much like electrolysis however using Electrochemical – Thermally Activated Chemical (E-TAC) using electricity to split water and oxygen.

Read more: Breakthrough technology could produce green hydrogen at $1/kg

The technology was developed at Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. E-TAC water splitting offers energy efficiency of over 95%, significantly higher than traditional water electrolysis technologies which typically deliver energy efficiency of around 70%.

E-TAC is also expected to prove more cost effective than traditional electrolysis, with CAPEX costs anticipated to be broadly halved, alongside lower operational costs.

H2Pro is targeting producing hydrogen at a cost of under US$2/kg by 2023, when its first commercial, megawatt scale project is anticipated to move into production, and at a cost of under US$1/kg by 2030.

Pinakin Chaubal, Chief Technology Officer at ArcelorMittal, said, “The potential green hydrogen holds to deliver deep decarbonisation of the steelmaking process is well understood.

“Although the technology required to directly reduce iron ore using hydrogen still needs to mature, the greater challenge with this new method of ironmaking is the cost and availability of the energy input – green hydrogen.

“Given H2Pro’s focus on developing a novel technology which aims to produce green hydrogen in an energy efficient manner at competitive costs, it is a very welcome and natural addition to our XCarb™ innovation fund investment portfolio.

“Although at an early stage, E-TAC is a very exciting technology, and we look forward to working with the H2Pro team as it seeks to move it into commercial production.”