We often pause when we hear people talking about the holy grail of clean-energy production. One way to define holy grail is as something eagerly pursued or sought after – we can see the connection here. But other definitions talk about the idea of an unattainable ideal, and that’s not a concept we buy into.
For Ekona, when it comes to decarbonization, there is no holy grail, despite what some say. And, when it comes to clean hydrogen production, there is more than one valid pathway. We’re not going to be able to decarbonize quickly by thinking about either/or solutions; we really do have to believe in and.
Ekona’s focus is on how we can utilize abundant, low-cost hydrocarbon resources in cleaner, better ways. In pursuit of this goal, we’ve developed a novel, non-catalytic methane pyrolysis platform that uses pulsed combustion and high-speed gas dynamics to convert natural gas into hydrogen and solid carbon.
Battling climate change with xCaliber™
At the core of Ekona’s platform is our xCaliber™ reactor. We took inspiration for xCaliber™ from Arthurian legend and have a tale as old (and lengthy) as time behind the name. Beyond the (un)subtle nod to Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, our team of Ekonites (eco-knights) goes into battle every day to save the planet.
Yes, this is all a bit cheesy. But we really like the new reactor name. What we like even more is that we’re currently testing xCaliber™ in our Burnaby lab to verify performance and integration with balance of plant components. We will deploy our first field unit in 2024 and additional commercial units will be in progress by 2025.
What Ekona is doing is not the stuff of legends, nor is it an unattainable quest. It’s a pragmatic, cost-effective, and timely solution to meeting net-zero targets, for the here and now.
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