Oxylus Energy, spun out of a Yale chemistry lab last year, is commercializing a cobalt-based catalyst housed in an electrolyzer to convert CO2 and water into methanol at room temperature and pressure. Its process is designed to bypass the need for separately sourced green hydrogen by steering reactions to favor methanol formation, which the company says reduces energy intensity and cost. The methanol produced can serve the chemical industry and, with additional refining, be turned into sustainable aviation fuel; the company highlights potential to decarbonize shipping, aviation and petrochemicals. Oxylus aims to build a production-scale reactor to demonstrate aggressive price targets and reach cost parity with fossil methanol at current renewable energy contract prices. Management frames the core challenge as a time-and-money problem to build the system in the next few years. The startup recently raised outside capital to advance scale-up and validation.

Total raised

$5M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Sep 2024