1s1 Energy is a materials-science company making green hydrogen cheaper by rethinking the guts of the electrolyzer. Instead of the fluorinated (PFAS) membranes the industry has leaned on for decades, 1s1 builds boron-based proton-exchange membranes and electrochemical components that its partners report can produce a kilogram of hydrogen using roughly 70% of the energy of incumbent devices - already hitting efficiency targets the U.S. Department of Energy set for 2031. Founded in 2019 and run out of Portola Valley, California with labs in Lisbon and Campinas, Brazil, the company sells core components to electrolyzer and fuel-cell makers and runs pilots with utilities and heavy industry.
Vimano is a Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup building PFAS-free, ion-selective nanotech membranes for the electrochemical devices that power the energy transition - redox flow batteries, AEM electrolyzers, and hydrogen fuel cells. Its proprietary membrane platform tackles the ion-crossover problem that limits efficiency in long-duration energy storage and green hydrogen, and it also adapts the same polymer-film science to thermal management films for satellites. The company's stated goal is to sit inside 1 out of every 2 large-scale energy storage devices, electrolyzers and fuel cells on the planet.