Portfolio Update: Lectrolyst

Lectrolyst has been selected to be part of a team for CATALCHEM-E, a program from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E). The program is putting $34M into 12 projects that combine artificial intelligence with research laboratories, with the goal of cutting the time for catalyst development by 90%, from roughly a decade to about one year.

Lectrolyst is working alongside Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis, and PHIN Materials on the Trinity SI Platform (TAP) project, led by PNNL. Catalysts are at the heart of Lectrolyst’s process, and finding better ones has historically been slow because results from small lab tests don’t always hold up in larger, engineered systems. The TAP team is addressing this with an automated workflow that moves only the strongest catalyst candidates on to more stringent, industrially relevant testing. Promising catalysts are then validated directly in engineered electrodes, so what works in the lab is proven to work at scale.

For Lectrolyst, this collaboration means lower cost products reaching the market faster; this new work will bring to the company:

• AI powered discovery: Machine learning models paired with high throughput experimentation will allow the team to explore far more catalyst options in far less time than traditional research.

• Results that hold up at scale: Candidates are tested under real operating conditions early, which reduces the risk of surprises when the technology scales.

• Lower production costs: Better catalysts improve the efficiency of Lectrolyst’s process and make its protein more competitive on price.

• World class partners: Working with a leading national laboratory, a top research university, and a materials innovator gives Lectrolyst access to expertise and infrastructure few early companies can reach on their own.

• Federal validation: Selection through a competitive ARPA-E program is a strong signal of confidence in the team and its technology.

  
  

Please contact Tony Coretto or Mitchell Hauser for more information or to arrange a meeting with Greg Hutchings, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Lectrolyst.