U of T Professor Leads Global Initiative to Achieve Affordable Net-Zero Hydrogen Production at $1 per Kilogram.

U of T Engineering Professor Leads new global collaboration to advance net-zero hydrogen economy, with the goal of making it more energy efficient and affordable by reaching US$1 per kilogram. Professor Murray Thomson is one of four national leads of the newly established Global Hydrogen Production Technologies (HyPT) Center, along with professors from Arizona State University, the University of Adelaide in Australia and Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. The Canadian component of the project will receive $3.6 million over five years from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), providing the Center with a total of $25.5 million to support student training and mobility. Thomson’s research is focused on methane pyrolysis, and he has co-founded a company, Aurora Hydrogen, which is creating low-cost, low-carbon hydrogen production. The other two hydrogen technologies the Center is exploring are water electrolysis, where water is split into hydrogen and water using electrical energy; and photocatalytic water splitting, which uses sunlight to separate hydrogen and oxygen. The goal is to provide the energy that the world needs with much less greenhouse gas emissions.