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Hy9 Corp., a maker of hydrogen purifiers for use with fuel cells, has struck a new deal with ExxonMobil Corp. to provide its products to ExxonMobil’s on-board fuel cell reformer project.
The ExxonMobil project, which it announced last year, aims to develop fuel-cell-powered forklifts to run on a variety of hydrocarbon-based fuels, such as diesel fuel. While the hands-on research will be done on forklifts, officials at Hopkinton-based Hy9 and at ExxonMobil said the project is a precursor to bringing such technology to passenger vehicles.
The deal comes on the heels of a change in management at Hy9. Over the summer, previous CEO Jeffrey Altman left the six-person company, and after several months of searching, the company appointed Brad Bradshaw, the president of the Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, as interim CEO.
Hy9 has built its business on selling hydrogen reforming products to the industrial gas and backup power industries, but since its inception in 1998, passenger vehicles have always been the brass ring. Yet the infrastructure for such vehicles has been wanting.
“There are two ways this industry can go,” said Bradshaw. “It can use hydrogen filling stations to power fuel cell vehicles, or it can use on-board reformers, eliminating the need for filling stations across the country.”
ExxonMobil, said Bradshaw, is aiming at the latter, with the hope that high-efficiency fuel cell vehicles can come to market without the need for expensive infrastructure changes across the country.
According to statements from Emil Jacobs, vice president of R&D at Exxon-Mobil Research and Engineering, onboard reforming in passenger vehicles could be 80 percent more fuel efficient than current engine technologies and cut CO2 emissions by 45 percent.
The Hy9-Exxon deal includes a number of well-known industry names, including fuel cell maker Plug Power Inc., purification technology maker QuestAir Technologies Inc. and Israel-based Ben Gurion University. And Hy9 is still moving forward on its industrial gas and other applications, though officials would not disclose any revenue numbers. The company was originally founded by Walter Juda, founder of Ionics Inc., in 1998. The firm is backed by a syndicate of angel investors, who put $2.3 million into the company in 2006.
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