news
ionysis and EKPO visit ReCatalyst’s new DEMO premises
20.02.2025 - ENABLER project partners gathered in Ljubljana in February 2025 to discuss past successes, new exciting project results and a future action plan as the project is coming to an end in November this year. From the start of the project in June 2023 until today, the consortium submitted more than 15 deliverables showcasing the strong technical and economic potential of a PFSA-free European value chain with minimum critical raw material use.
The meeting in Ljubljana marked a special occasion as partners had the opportunity to see ReCatalyst’s lab capabilities, but also paid a visit to the ReCatalyst’s new demo premises, featuring the recently commissioned pilot reactor technologies. This milestone is an important contribution to the ENABLER’s long-term objective to improve the commercial viability of hydrogen and ramp up its mass use to decarbonize transport and energy sectors.
The joint EIC Transition project has empowered ionysis and ReCatalyst, as start-ups, to scale both the technical and commercial aspects of their products. It also facilitated collaboration with a potential end-user, EKPO, providing valuable feedback and insights that will contribute to lasting impact beyond the project's conclusion.
About ReCatalyst
ReCatalyst, d.o.o. is a spin-out company from the National Institute of Chemistry (Ljubljana, Slovenia) founded in early 2021. The company's mission is to provide customizable next-generation platinum alloy catalyst solutions, enabling its customers' massive scalability of high power proton exchange membrane fuel cells with an optimized usage of platinum group metals. Since inception, the company has received multiple awards such as the Slovenian Start-up-of-the-year 2023 and 2nd place at the EIT awards in the Venture section. The foundations of the start-up have been developed within the frameworks of publicly funded projects such as the ERC ‘Proof of Concept’ StableCat as well as the EIT Raw Materials Accelerator. In addition to the EIC Transition project that started in June 2023, the company has also successfully raised an oversubscribed Seed round of 1.7M EUR co-led by international investors HTGF, OCCIDENT and xista science ventures.
About ionysis
ionysis GmbH develops highly efficient, emission-free and sustainable core components for fuel cells and electrolyzers. This includes the so-called "membrane electrode assemblies" with a significantly reduced content of perfluorinated substances. The aim is to further develop novel, more efficient and environmentally friendly membrane electrode assemblies and bring them to market. ionysis started operations in September 2022 and has grown to a team of 25+ employees. The foundation for this spin-off from Hahn-Schickard and the University of Freiburg was laid by several publicly funded research projects. The company secured seed funding from two strategic partners.
Contact
Tomaž Bizjak (ReCatalyst, CEO): tomaz.bizjak@recatalyst.si
Dr. Matija Gatalo (ReCatalyst, CTO): matija.gatalo@recatalyst.si
Lisa Langer (ionysis, CFO): lisa.langer@ionysis.com
This project has received funding from the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) under project number 101112991.
© 2023 enabler project