Electrochemical platform
Supercritical has built the world's first continuous high-pressure electrochemical reactor. The same platform makes hydrogen from water today and speciality chemicals from carbon-rich waste.
The platform opportunity
Supercritical has developed the most versatile electrochemical reactor platform that can produce hydrogen from water, upgrade organic waste streams, and process a broader range of bio-based feedstocks.
By operating across a wide range of pressures and temperatures, the platform can be tuned to different chemistries, products, and process integrations without requiring a new system each time. That flexibility makes it a stronger commercial route to hydrogen, sustainable chemicals, and future industrial applications.
Building on our scalable stack platform, using AI-led material discovery, AI-accelerated engineering and empirical testing at our Global Technology Centre, we work closely with partners to create bespoke electrocatalytic pathways that create value from their specific feedstocks.
Water into hydrogen and oxygen, delivered at pressure without a downstream compressor. Proven and pilot-ready, with signed customer contracts. The hydrogen goes directly into ammonia, methanol and refining, and on into maritime and aviation fuels, delivered with partners.
Crude glycerine into formates and glycolates, with hydrogen as a co-product. Two speciality chemical families from one feedstock, selected by tuning the reactor rather than rebuilding it. One- and two-carbon building blocks for the refineries of the future.
Sugars into glucaric acid, and on into adipic acid, the monomer behind nylon. A high-volume polymer intermediate reached electrochemically rather than through the conventional fossil route.
The platform extended into higher-value chemistries beyond the feedstocks proven in Solutions 1 to 3. Same reactor, same playbook, a wider set of molecules.
Every molecule sits somewhere on an energy ladder. Conventional synthesis either starts from fossil feedstocks or pays a heavy energy price to avoid them. CO₂-to-chemicals routes start at the very bottom, which is why building fuels and chemicals up from carbon dioxide costs so much energy. Carbon-rich waste already sits near the top. Coming down a short way to a useful product is a far smaller step, and it is the step our reactor is built to make.
CO₂-to-chemicals routes start at the lowest rung on the ladder. Reducing carbon dioxide back into a useful molecule takes in the order of twice the energy of oxidising a waste stream down to the same product, and that gap does not close as the technology matures. It is a property of the chemistry, not of the equipment.
Carbon-rich waste streams are too often treated as a cost. Supercritical turns them into useful molecules through a far smaller energy step, on hardware built specifically to make it, creating more value from existing industrial inputs.
The platform's lack of membrane means Supercritical only requires basic filtration and conditioning of crude feedstocks. We skip the costly step other hardware depends on.
Flow rate sets how hard the feedstock sweeps the catalyst, which sets oxidation, which sets the product. Diffusion-based approaches cannot steer it, their products risk over-oxidising before they clear the surface.
The same mass-manufactured rig tunes to high selectivity across different organic feedstocks and target molecules. Competitors re-engineer hardware per product; we change the settings.
Continuous operation from ambient up to 230 bar and 400°C, built for tuning. A far wider optimisation space than membrane hardware can physically sustain, unlocking reactions that are not available anywhere else.
Scotch whisky distilleries producing and storing hydrogen on site, ending operational reliance on fossil fuels in one of Scotland's most iconic industries.
Read case study →Working with UK biodiesel producers to turn crude glycerine, currently a disposal liability, into formates and clean hydrogen on a dual-revenue basis.
Read case study →High-pressure hydrogen integrating directly with Haber-Bosch, removing the compressor and transforming the economics of green ammonia.
Read case study →Supercritical valorises crude glycerine. Every tonne of biodiesel produces roughly 100 kilogrammes of it, and biodiesel growth has significantly reduced the value of refined glycerine. The same reactor, tuned differently, can take that one waste stream to multiple valuable molecules.
Crude glycerine to potassium formate and hydrogen. Adjust the operating point and the same feedstock yields glycolates instead.
Applications: runway and road de-icer, heat-transfer fluids, synthetic leather and textiles, agrochemicals and pharmaceutical intermediates, biodegradable polymers.
One feedstock, one reactor, a family of products. This model shows how tuning the selectivity of the reactor steers waste glycerine towards a chosen product along the oxidation pathway. Move the sliders to see what the platform can do. This is the glycerine pathway specifically — other feedstocks run on the same reactor but along pathways of their own, with different products at different positions.
The horizontal axis is the depth of oxidation: the number of electrons transferred per molecule of glycerol. Each product occupies a characteristic position determined by stoichiometry. Lactic acid sits at 2 e⁻, glyceric at 4 e⁻, glycolic at 6 e⁻ (with a formate co-product from the C–C cleavage, which caps carbon yield to glycolic at two thirds), formate at 8 e⁻ (three molecules per glycerol), oxalic at 10 e⁻ and full mineralisation to carbonate at 14 e⁻.
This axis belongs to glycerine. The products shown, and the electron count at which each appears, are set by the structure of the glycerol molecule. Other carbon-rich feedstocks — other bio-waste streams, or the sugars behind Solution 3 — run on the same reactor but oxidise along their own pathways, giving a different set of products at different positions. The behaviour the model demonstrates, that tuning conditions narrows the product distribution, is what carries across; the specific products do not.
Carbon yield treats the products as competing parallel channels that divide the converted carbon between them, so the curves always sum to 100%. Mass yield rescales those channels by the theoretical mass recoverable per kilogramme of glycerol fed. Reaction progress shows the composition of the mixture itself travelling along the electron axis as oxidation proceeds.
This is an illustrative model, not a kinetic prediction. The channel shapes, their widths and the equal weighting between them are modelling choices made for clarity. Real selectivity profiles arise from competing reaction kinetics and will be neither symmetric nor uniform. The qualitative behaviour, that tuning conditions narrows the product distribution, is sound; the specific curve shapes are not measured.
The single axis simplifies a branched network, and mass yields are theoretical maxima that take no account of separation losses. The selectivity slider is an abstraction: no single control in the reactor maps onto it. It represents the headroom available through catalyst discovery and condition optimisation, which is precisely the development programme it is intended to motivate.
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Partnership model
Our bespoke development service works on a simple basis: problem definition, opportunity assessment, development programme, and build. We work with partners who have organic waste streams and want to extract value from them, whether through a fee-for-development model, a licensing arrangement, or a joint commercial partnership.
Partners invest in development knowing that a successful outcome creates a commercially valuable, defensible process. Supercritical supplies the core technology, the engineering capability, and the electrocatalytic expertise. You supply the waste stream and the commercial intent.
If a specific chemical pathway caught your attention, that is probably not an accident. We are selectively exploring partnerships with industrial operators, chemical producers and strategic investors who recognise the platform value here.
Contact us to find out how we can help you create value from your waste streams.