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Ekona Power’s Methane Pyrolysis Advantage

By Vincent Lauerman
Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Methane pyrolysis may not get the fanfare of other clean hydrogen production methods at the present time because it is an emerging technology, but as it nears commercial takeoff by startups such as Burnaby, British Columbia-based Ekona Power, it appears production of so-called turquoise hydrogen could quickly garner a substantial share of the growing global market given its advantages over other types of clean hydrogen.

Founded in 2017, Ekona has made the prestigious Foresight 50 list — recognizing Canada’s most investible cleantech ventures — every year since the list’s launch in 2021.

Based on a 2024 report by the B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (now known as NorthX Climate Tech), Ekona is one of 32 companies around the world developing methane pyrolysis technology to produce clean hydrogen, but its proprietary xCaliber reactor provides it with significant advantages over its pyrolysis competition, according to Gary Schubak, the company’s chief commercial officer.

The Ekona advantage

Ekona’s pulsed methane pyrolysis platform uses combustion to convert natural gas into hydrogen and solid carbon — both of which are marketable — making it the lowest cost clean hydrogen technology with its cost comparable to grey hydrogen at larger scale, while significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions compared to steam methane reforming, Schubak told DOB Energy.

And because it does not require carbon capture and sequestration, clean electricity or water feedstock like other methods of clean hydrogen production, and relies on combustion unlike other pyrolysis technologies, it is both highly scalable and deployable wherever natural gas infrastructure exists. Clean hydrogen production near the point of consumption provides huge cost savings given the high cost of transporting hydrogen long distances compared to natural gas.

“The production processes of both green and blue hydrogen add substantially to their total cost,” Schubak said.

“Green hydrogen because of the large amount of water and clean electricity needed to produce it, and blue hydrogen because carbon capture and sequestration is expensive.

“In contrast, methane pyrolysis benefits from a second revenue stream (as indicated above) from the solid carbon it produces. Solid carbon black sells for between $800 and more than $1,500 per tonne, depending on the market.”

At the same time, Ekona’s xCaliber reactor platform has two key advantages over the methane pyrolysis technologies of its competitors, according to Schubak.

“Other valid technologies need a lot of power to produce the high heat required to separate hydrogen and carbon from natural gas, which means sourcing clean power to limit their GHG emissions,” he said.

“In addition, conventional reactors require a catalyst, whereas our xCaliber reactor in non-catalytic. Catalysts contaminate over time, especially since methane pyrolysis technologies produce three times more carbon than hydrogen, which can contaminate catalysts and require complex catalyst regeneration solutions.”

The cost to produce grey hydrogen using steam methane reforming is about $1.20 per kilogram, blue hydrogen about $2 per kilogram, and green hydrogen can cost as much as $6 per kilogram. By contrast, the cost of making turquoise hydrogen with Ekona’s methane pyrolysis platform should be at parity with conventional steam methane reforming at industrial scale. This cost parity is achieved by valorizing the solid carbon co-product in commercial markets.

Present and future markets

Despite seeing large potential markets for its xCaliber methane pyrolysis platform at the present time, Ekona expects it to expand in the future as the clean hydrogen and solid carbon it produces breaks into even larger markets, especially in countries without carbon sequestration potential like Japan and South Korea, according to Schubak.

“We view existing markets for both hydrogen and carbon black as the best ones to focus on for our xCaliber platform at the present time,” Schubak said. “Oil refining and upgrading, ammonia and other chemicals for hydrogen, partly because hydrogen’s value-add is relatively high for them. Ekona is initially targeting the carbon black industry for its co-product carbon, for use in the production of tires, rubbers, and plastics.”

It should be noted Ekona’s solid carbon byproduct has lower GHG intensity than carbon black produced using traditional methods, while its structure — a fine black powder that consists of extremely small particles that form chain-like clusters with a high surface area to volume ratio — gives it many useful properties including relatively low weight, resistance to heat, excellence at absorbing UV light and conducting electricity, and an inability to dissolve in water.

Carbon black also acts as a reinforcing agent when mixed with rubber, plastics and some building materials.

“In the longer term, we expect hydrogen produced with our technology to break into even bigger markets such as heat, especially for industries that require high heat like cement and steel, and as a hydrogen/methane mix and possibly straight hydrogen for power generation,” Schubak said.

“We foresee expanding our markets for solid carbon into asphalt cement, where it can be used as an additive to increase durability and mitigate cracking.”

Other potential markets for carbon black produced by methane pyrolysis include other construction materials like cement, concrete and steel, battery electrodes, water purification and soil enrichment for agriculture.

Pathway to commercialization

Ekona is in the process of refining and scaling up the size of its xCaliber reactor platform, while facing some economic and financial headwinds related to the second Trump administration’s combative trade policies, Schubak said.

“The company’s technical solution is highly scalable, utilizing established energy infrastructure and leveraging existing commercial technologies,” he said. “A significant remaining challenge is to produce commercial-grade carbon black so we can maximize the commercial value of the platform.”

Ekona presently operates a 200 kilogram per day pilot plant at its Burnaby facility, and is developing its new Gen2 xCaliber reactor there to achieve greater capacity, higher efficiency and to produce commercial-grade commercial black. It’s targeting next year to do so.

Next up is a field demonstration plant at ARC Resources’ Gold Creek Natural Gas Plant near Grande Prairie, Alberta by 2027, followed up by 20 tonne per day xCaliber reactor platforms for its first commercial customers by 2028.

“Ultimately, we will scale up to 100, 300, even 500 tonnes per day, whatever our customers need,” Schubak said.

At the same time, the recent trade war between Canada — and most other countries — and the U.S. has been negatively impacting Ekona in two ways, according to Schubak.

“It has increased the price of some of the things we buy,” he said. “But the bigger impact has been due to investor uncertainty. It is causing hesitancy by companies to invest in new technologies, impeding the ability of pre-commercial cleantech companies like us to raise money.”

Fortunately, Ekona secured $79 million through a very successful Series-A funding round in 2022 and has garnered several million dollars more through a range of federal and B.C. government funding programs since then.

Houston-based Baker Hughes Company led the Series-A investors, which consisted mainly of North American oil and gas producers, as well as midstream and downstream companies and investors from Southeast Asia and Japan, reflecting Ekona’s potential client base of the future.