Syzygy Plasmonics, a chemical start-up based in Houston, Texas, USA, has raised $5.8 million from corporate and institutional donors, among others to develop the technology to manufacture an environmentally friendly chemical reactor that could potentially replace those used at refineries and chemical plants.

The sum adds to the $900,000 the company founded in 2017 by two professors at Rice University professors raised in early 2018 to gain proof that two decades worth of research could be scaled up.

“This reactor is fundamentally different,” CEO Trevor Best told the newspaper Houston Chroncle. “It's super science.” The new technology could be energy saving, the company says, because it uses LED lights that generates considerably less heat than conventional reactors.

Hydrogen is the first element that Syzygy will seek to make in large quantities. Here, the reactor’s LED lights will turn water and methane to a temperature of just over 200°C rather than the 815°C used in conventional processes.

As it doesn't require massive amounts of heat, the novel reactor can be operated with renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power, thus reducing emissions by 40-50% against compared to the current method for producing hydrogen, Best explains.

Hydrogen was chosen as a first commercial market because of its versatility, in particular as it can be used to produce ammonia, , The company sees its most exciting potential in producing hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles.

Best points to a decision by Korea’s Hyundai and its OEM suppliers late last year to spend $6.7 billion to boost fuel cell systems production and to explore new business opportunities for supplying these systems to other transportation manufacturers.

Syzygy has received grants from the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation to develop chemical reactors that would be virtually emissions free and that would remove carbon from the atmosphere.