School of Chemistry

Innovative Solutions for Green Energy Storage

Research by Professor Mark Symes and Professor Lee Cronin has led to the development of decoupled electrolysis of water, which allows the hydrogen and oxygen from electrolysis of water to be produced in separate places, at separate times, and at rates not linked to each other. This allows high-pressure hydrogen to be produced using intermittent renewable inputs (something that other electrolysis systems can only do with additional expensive balance-of-plant).

A company to commercialise this work and develop new electrolysers, Clyde Hydrogen Systems, was spun-out of the University of Glasgow in 2024, and has raised >£1.6M funding to date.

Clyde Hydrogen Systems employs four full time staff and is sited in the new Glasgow Hydrogen Innovation Centre in the School of Chemistry at UofG.

This Centre was established in 2024 with funding from the Scottish Government’s Hydrogen Innovation Scheme and the University of Glasgow to provide facilities for early-stage companies in the hydrogen space to build and test their innovative devices.

The School of Chemistry is committed to providing incubator space for new commercialisation ventures resulting from its high impact research.

Key paper

• Symes, M., Cronin, L. Decoupling hydrogen and oxygen evolution during electrolytic water splitting using an electron-coupled-proton buffer. Nature Chem 5, 403–409 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1621