CEMEX Ventures, CEMEX’s corporate venture capital and open innovation unit, has increased its stake in HiiROC, a UK-based start-up that produces cost-competitive and zero-emission hydrogen through its proprietary process of thermal plasma electrolysis.
While hydrogen is becoming an increasingly promising alternative energy source and feedstock for a wide and diverse set of industrial processes, existing solutions are traditionally either high emission or high cost. Alternatively, HiiROC’s technology produces high grade hydrogen that requires a fraction of the energy consumed by water electrolysis, and avoids the need for intensive carbon capture, utilisation and storage methods required for traditional steam methane reforming. Furthermore, HiiROC’s production units are modular and scalable, use no water, and carbon black, a co-product of the hydrogen production process, becomes an additional area of opportunity to further decarbonise heavy industries.
"This news comes at a critical moment when COP28 has brought the world together to address and refocus the climate agenda and buckle down on the responsibility of governments and private corporations to deliver on their decarbonisation objectives ahead of 2030,” said Gonzalo Galindo, head of CEMEX Ventures. “With our increased investment in HiiROC, we are especially proud to be #1 in the use of hydrogen in the cement sector and are committed to keep scouting new ways to deploy hydrogen at a grand scale at CEMEX’s 60 cement and grinding plants.”
CEMEX initially invested in the breakthrough start-up in 2022 and is planning large-scale deployment of HiiROC’s thermal plasma technology to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels and help decarbonise its operations. CEMEX intends to initially increase its hydrogen injection capacity at its Rugby cement plant in the UK before deploying HiiROC’s technology gradually across its EMEA operations.
