Nanofilm Technologies International has signed a definitive agreement with Temasek to form a joint venture, Sydrogen Energy, to create products to be used in the growing hydrogen economy.
Under terms of the JV, Nanofilm will take a 65% stake in the company, with Temasek holding the remainder.
The total initial investment in Sydrogen is around $140 million, of which Nanofilm will chip in $21 million, as well as the transfer of its hydrogen energy business and licence of the its intellectual property relating to the business.
The proceeds are intended to be used for research and development and the construction of production capacity.
“The combination of Nanofilm’s technologies and Temasek’s global network will help Sydrogen bring its advanced solutions to the hydrogen economy quickly and effectively,” says Nanofilm’s founder and chairman Shi Xu.
Plans to form this JV was first announced on April 19.
see also: Is hydrogen a viable fuel for the long-term?
The way Shi sees it, setting up Sydrogen as a separate joint venture is part of Nanofilm’s overall bid to move into different end markets.
Specifically, Sydrogen sees China as an attractive market, with government policies strongly supporting the development of a hydrogen economy starting with fuel cell electric vehicles.
Sydrogen also plans to invest significant effort to develop additional core component technologies in areas such as catalysts and hydrogen storage.
see also: Getting a headstart on hydrogen
According to Nanofilm, Sydrogen’s first focus area will be the application of Nanofilm’s proprietary filtered cathodic vacuum arc technology in the development of protective carbon coatings for metallic bipolar plates of fuel cells and electrolysers.
This carbon coating that is similar to conductive diamond, with special material properties such as corrosion resistance, low resistivity, ion-leaching prevention, and high conductivity, is critical to manufacturing cost effective metallic bipolar plates.
Nanofilm closed July 19 at $6.22, down 0.64%.
