ISTE to develop eco-friendly hydrogen with British company

An innovative South Korean small business has secured technology to simultaneously produce eco-friendly hydrogen and cathode materials for secondary batteries from natural gas.

The Hwasong, Gyeonggi Province-based Innovative System Technology (ISTE) Inc. on Tuesday said it signed an agreement with Levidian Nanosystems, a British company in Cambridge, England, to develop plants for turquoise hydrogen, a byproduct of natural gas pyrolosis, and graphene.

Levidian holds patented technology to produce such hydrogen and solid carbon dioxide when firing microwave plasma into natural gas as well as make graphene from CO2.

Graphene is a new material in which carbon atoms are combined in the form of a two-dimensional plane with a honeycomb structure, boasting electrical and thermal conductivity and strength. The combination of silicon and graphene into a core-shell structure results in the output of efficient and stable cathode materials for secondary batteries.

ISTE will commercialize this technology by boosting its production capacity for turquoise hydrogen from several tens of kg per cycle to T-units. This company is designated an innobiz, or a technologically innovative small and medium enterprise, in semiconductor front-end processes and supplies equipment to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Entering the hydrogen sector in 2019, ISTE is designing and building hydrogen charging stations in seven locations nationwide including Jeonju, North Jeolla Province.

Write to Hae-Sung Lee at ihs@hankyung.com