Ionomr Innovations

I am applying for the Elevate Prize to make large-scale efficient carbon utilization (CO2RR) systems a reality years sooner, win the Carbon X-Prize, and see real deployments proliferate globally before 2025. 

My company, Ionomr, has brought to market a new technology that represents the critical building blocks for extreme efficiency, next-gen hydrogen and CO2 utilization systems. Ionomr's activities in hydrogen have been acknowledged by the World Energy Council, Shell, the US Dept. of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, & over 50 OEM partners and the team is fully engaged in making reference designs and piloting.

This technology alone has the potential for >10 Gt/y CO2 elimination by 2050 and the only way to use CO2 that benefits a the creation of a circular economy. Unfortunately the current trajectory with our technology partners is large demonstration in 2026-2030, which is 2-3 years late to hit the inflection of industrial investment necessary to achieve IEA/IRENA/BNEF/Shell models for zero CO2 by 2050, representing trillions in future cost. 

The additional resources provided by the Elevate Prize will enable me to hire the team to ramp CO2RR technology, build pilot systems, and engage key partners just as quickly as we have demonstrated in hydrogen. 

I am passionate about globally scaling the keystone technologies to achieve total carbon neutrality. This goal is achievable before 2050 by demonstrating critical breakthroughs today.

As a young chemist doing successful work on a DuPont project in 2006-7, I realized that toxic, fluorinated "forever chemicals" were the worst possible foundation to scale the renewable energy economy on, and better, more lifetime-cost-efficient solutions were necessary, just like advanced silicon enabled solar to truly grow exponentially. My studies through my PhD and founding of Ionomr were dedicated to making that vision a reality.

Ionomr represents the second great moment in materials for renewable energy, driving down lifetime cost of ownership while driving up efficiency for hydrogen and CO2-to-value systems. We're a team of 30 based in Vancouver, Canada, and our activities have been acknowledged by the World Energy Council, Shell, the US Dept. of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, & over 50 OEM partners. 

We also have dozens of applications in circular lithium extraction, onsite chemical-gen, easily recyclable batteries, and more. Ionomr will make every electrochemical system fully recyclable & renewable by replacing toxic, bioaccumulative fluorinated (PFAS) materials and completely eliminating the potent "forever GHG" F-gases before they're produced and persist forever.

The entire world is affected by climate change. The WHO claims this is the largest threat to health in the 21st century, and the difference between success and failure on the 1.5 °C target is north of $36T in damages (M. Burke et al., Nature, 2019). 

Ionomr has two core materials solutions, selective filters for positive ions (proton/cation-exchange) and negative ions (anion-exchange). These are the building blocks for hydrogen and CCU systems. We engineered out what were thought to be unsolvable issues using new methods of making polymers we pioneered, and as a result have 50-year fundamental breakthroughs in the performance, lifetime, and total cost of ownership for hydrogen systems: water electrolyzers for zero-CO2 'green' hydrogen production and FCEVs for heavy-duty transportation, as well as CO2-to-value electrolyzer systems. Despite the different applications, all of these system build-ups are similar. Nouryon, the largest electrolyzer operator in Europe, has promised 4 GW installation by 2030 and estimates a $1B USD capital cost savings using Ionomr's solutions. A major European OEM has shown a 3x increase to CCU production using Ionomr's materials alone, claiming a >$50/tonne CO2 profit on their green steel large pilot, the first profitable carbon-to-fuel/chemical system.

Again, we pioneered and have incredibly broad, blocking, fundamental patents as a result, and their application in hydrogen is an evolution and combination of the two systems that currently scaling for green hydrogen.

Our materials are a revolution for carbon capture and utilization, completely disruptive and world-changing by making carbon-negative plastics, chemicals, & fuels (e-fuels) profitable without subsidy/tax at current commodity prices, called electrochemical CO2 reduction, the most efficient form of CCU. CO2 injection (CCS) is never profitable and a bridge technology at best (direct air capture CCS best case is ~$100-150/ton cost, and there are no guarantees on leak-free CO2 injection. The current alternative CCU (Fischer-Tropsch), developed ~100 years ago, is extremely energy inefficient, a high-temperature/pressure reverse combustion, with typically 70% useless product. Our technology creates one or a small handful of high-value products, including ethylene, methanol, ethanol, the #2, #3, and #4 industrial chemicals and usable as e-fuels or input to every other commodity plastic. The technology is ready now and my organization is uniquely positioned as the only one who realizes the extent of this, can demonstrate the breakthrough, put together an effective partnership based on existing relationships to scale the technology globally in a short time.

The steps I have taken are to achieve and demonstrate the materials breakthrough holy grails with collaborators, found a company to commercialize that is capable of selling to the multinational OEMs the need to adopt these materials, and attract relevant funding to develop these products and scale to a critical mass to take on the world. Ionomr's materials have orders-of-magnitudes improvements while being cost-competitive or better to incumbent materials, all while driving 30-70% improvements to total cost of ownership in systems, truly positioning for universal adoption.

The straightforward steps to be taken are to fully prove out product manufacturability, quality control, and relevant ISO standards, necessary to sell to targeted automotive and industrial OEMs, many of the world's largest companies. The difficult steps involve demonstration to enhance adoption. Hydrogen is planned out and we have partnerships and consortia well-formed. CO2 is nascent, but we have achieved initial successes with National Research Council support and customer partnerships - your support with the Elevate Prize is an opportunity to scale our expert team and build the compelling reference design demonstration to win the new Carbon X-Prize and take on the world. This model is built for exponential technology scaling, as with wifi.