SunHydrogen to explore scale-up with electroplater COTEC

SunHydrogen, the developer of a technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and water (earlier post), entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with COTEC to explore the development and optimization of industrial electroplating solutions for SunHydrogen’s semiconductor deposition, a fundamental component of the company’s nanoparticle technology.

Located in Changwon, South Korea, COTEC is a leader in industrial electroplating and electrochemical processes. COTEC possesses extensive plating expertise across the aerospace, automotive, defense and nuclear industries, and has worked with high-level clients such as Boeing, Hanwha, Airbus and more.

Within one of SunHydrogen’s hydrogen generators, billions of patented Photoelectrosynthetically Active Heterostructure (PAH) nanoparticles per square centimeter split apart water to generate hydrogen and oxygen. These PAH nanoparticles are composed of multiple layers of solar cells. The high-voltage, high-light absorbing properties of the solar cells enable the company to make them ultrathin and with significantly fewer materials, lowering costs and raising efficiency.

SunHydrogen PAH nanoparticle (left) and nano-particle-based solar generator (right). Source: SunHydrogen

Together, SunHydrogen and COTEC will explore the development and implementation of electroplating solutions to translate the existing PAH architecture and process to manufacturing scale while maintaining low cost and high efficiency.

Hydrogen-generating panel. Source: SunHydrogen

At lab scale, our team has consistently reached favorable photovoltage and photocurrent densities, but our current challenge is translating this success to larger scales. It is this challenge that we believe companies like COTEC—and our partners in Germany—can help us overcome.

—SunHydrogen’s CEO Tim Young

Earlier in the year, COTEC demonstrated to SunHydrogen its ability to electrodeposit materials at nanoscale.