How this startup is making hydrogen from seawater viable
‘Green hydrogen’ is often heralded as a solution to our carbon-free energy needs, but there’s a problem: producing it requires freshwater, something that is in increasingly short supply.
The UN warns that by 2030, global freshwater demand could exceed supply by 40%.
Traditional methods of producing hydrogen are carbon-intensive, but hydrogen generated through renewable-powered electrolysis that extracts it from water offers a far more sustainable alternative.
Ocengen, a Conception X startup, is taking a smart approach to rethinking its production.
“Around 30 litres of freshwater are needed to make one kilogramme of hydrogen. Based on predicted green hydrogen production, this could require around twice the UK’s annual public water supply,” explains Ocengen co-founder Shadeepa Karunarathne.
So Ocengen is looking to the abundant saltwater of the sea for a solution. While there are others taking a similar approach, they typically use an energy-intensive two-step process of desalinating the water before extracting the hydrogen.
Shadeepa has developed a process to enable true direct seawater electrolysis that has already gained the support of the Henry Royce Institute.
“We can achieve stable performance in real seawater over hundreds of hours, where most seawater prototypes fail due to corrosion, and we’ve built our process to be affordable and safe,” Shadeepa says.
Ocengen uses nanoengineering to transform earth-abundant metals into high-performing catalysts. This avoids the need for platinum, iridium and rare-earth metals entirely, cutting material costs by around 60%. It also eliminates dependence on fragile supply chains, a critical factor for scaling global hydrogen production.
The equipment is designed for sustained exposure to seawater while avoiding corrosion for three times longer than other attempts to create hydrogen at sea. It’s also designed to be efficient and use less power than other approaches, saving money in the process.
“We want to make green hydrogen viable. One of the main issues right now is that the cost of production is high. That is making governments wary about how much they should invest in it,” Shadeepa says.
Prior to starting his PhD in materials sciences at Bournemouth University, Shadeepa was a nanotechnology researcher in Sri Lanka, where he founded his first startup. However, he discovered a lack of support to grow the business there.
In the UK, he found Conception X, which stood out as one of the very few programmes globally designed for scientific founders, with a track record of turning early research into investable companies. Its partnership with the Royce Hydrogen Accelerator made it an even better fit for his focus on seawater electrolysis.
“Their strength lies in understanding the deeptech founder’s knowledge gaps and closing them with precision,” Shadeepa says.
“They’ve been absolutely foundational in shaping Ocengen. They helped us develop the commercial mindset, network and frameworks needed to build a company, rigorously test our assumptions with experts who understand deeptech ventures, and speak to potential investors with confidence — something we could not have done on our own at that stage.”
