This fundraising will allow the company to use its “carbon-free” processes in a new, less polluting “hybrid” heating system.
Bulane, a company in the south of France producing hydrogen-powered welding torches, announced on Tuesday that it had raised 14 million euros to transpose its processes “decarbonizedto large consumers of fossil fuels such as building boilers and industrial furnaces.
To heat its torches, Bulane currently uses hydrogen produced by electrolysis (a process of passing an electric current through water) rather than traditional acetylene gas cylinders. This process is much less polluting, provided that renewable (solar, wind or hydroelectric) or carbon-free (nuclear) electricity is used.
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Thanks to this fundraising, the Montpellier SME wishes to transpose to other industries the technology it has developed for its torches, in order to heat bakery or ceramic ovens for example, or even for heating buildings. , explained to AFP its founder and boss Nicolas Jerez. With this process, industrial furnaces and building boiler rooms, which generally consume butane and propane, could switch to a “hybrid“, like cars combining combustion and electric engines, specified Nicolas Jerez.
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«Hydrogen would be used when the necessary electricity is available and cheap, while carbon gases would take over when the electricity grid risks saturation or when electricity prices are high.“, he adds. The 14 million euros raised in recent weeks from historical investors in Bulane, energy and construction players and several banks should allow the company to grow from twenty to fifty employees, said Nicolas Jerez.
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