Rencat

RenCat was established based on two patent applications filed on inventions from the heterogeneous catalysis research at Surfcat. RenCat is commercializing a fuel processing technology to process ammonia to Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) grade hydrogen. Rencat uses a non-noble metal catalysts for hydrogen generation and an abundant inexpensive metal oxide to purify the hydrogen of trace ammonia.

For generating fuel cell grade hydrogen from ammonia, first it is converted to H₂ through a reaction called cracking. The cracking reaction because of thermodynamic reasons, leaves a trace amount of ammonia unconverted. Because ammonia even in trace amounts is a poison for PEMFC, a purification step is needed after the cracking step. Till now, an expensive and unreliable Pd-membrane based technology has been the way to clean the trace ammonia from the cracked product making H₂ generation from ammonia unfeasible. RenCat ammonia to H₂ generation technology is here to change that by drastically reducing the price of H₂ that will enable widespread application of fuel cell based power generation.