Investment in Immaterial, a UK Company with Gas Adsorption Technology2023/09/20

JERA Co., Inc., through JERA Ventures, has invested approximately one million pounds in Immaterial, a UK company.

Immaterial aims to accelerate the energy transition with its novel and low-cost CO₂ capture and hydrogen storage technologies. A spinout from Cambridge University, Immaterial develops and produces monolithic metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) designed for the separation and storage of gas molecules. MOFs are organic-inorganic hybrid materials developed as adsorbents to separate and store H₂, CO₂, or other chemical compounds from industrial mixed gas streams. Immaterial has the patents to make monolithic MOFs; their advanced production technology makes MOFs industrially robust while having higher adsorption capacity, leading to lower operating and capital costs. 

As JERA seeks to achieve, by 2050, virtually zero CO₂ emissions from their operations in Japan and overseas, it faces challenges including cost reduction of the transportation and storage of hydrogen energy and recovery technology for CO₂. The MOFs developed by Immaterial have the potential to accelerate the resolution of these challenges.

Through JERA Ventures, JERA will support startup growth and cocreation as a good partner by offering the value of our strengths as one of the world’s largest energy companies—such as our facilities and our LNG, hydrogen, and ammonia value chains—for proof-of-concept* or verification testing using actual equipment.
 

*    Proof of concept: A stage of verification prior to prototype development that tests the feasibility of a new concept, theory, principle, or idea or whether it can achieve the desired effects.