C-Zero builds methane pyrolysis reactors that heat natural gas in the presence of a proprietary catalyst to break hydrogen’s bond with methane, producing hydrogen and solid carbon. The company positions that hydrogen for today’s industries such as ammonia and petrochemical production and for potential future uses including transportation and steel. The solid carbon byproduct could be reused in applications ranging from asphalt to lithium-ion batteries. C-Zero says its process uses just a few kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of hydrogen, which it argues enables lower-cost, low-carbon hydrogen compared with electrolyzer-based green hydrogen. By using readily available natural gas and existing infrastructure, the company aims to make low-carbon hydrogen anywhere customers have natural gas or LNG. C-Zero previously raised a $34 million round in 2022 that PitchBook valued at $124 million post-money. CEO Zach Jones says the current raise should extend runway toward a Series B next year and help the company reach cash-flow positivity. C-Zero has developed a proprietary process for transforming natural gas into clean hydrogen and a solid carbon co-product using methane pyrolysis. The company closed a $34 million financing round to build its first pilot plant, expected online in Q1 2023. The pilot is planned to produce up to 400 kg of hydrogen per day from natural gas with no CO2 emissions. The round was led by SK Gas and included new investors Engie New Ventures and Trafigura, alongside participation from existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eni Next, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and AP Ventures. C-Zero positions the technology as a pathway to decarbonize natural gas and as a producer of “turquoise” hydrogen. The financing will support piloting and demonstration work to scale the technology. C-Zero is commercializing a proprietary thermocatalysis process that transforms natural gas into hydrogen and a solid carbon co-product. The technology, developed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, uses methane pyrolysis to split methane into hydrogen and solid carbon. The hydrogen can be used to decarbonize applications such as electrical generation, process heating and the production of commodity chemicals like ammonia. When renewable natural gas is used as the feedstock, the process can be carbon negative by extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it as solid carbon. C-Zero plans to accelerate its first commercial-scale deployment of this drop-in decarbonization technology and is hiring in the Santa Barbara region. The company raised $11.5M in Series A financing to support these efforts.

Total raised

$51M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Sep 2024