WisBusiness: the Podcast with Chad Mason, founder and CEO of Advanced Ionics

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Chad Mason, founder and CEO of Advanced Ionics. 

The company has developed a new class of existing devices called electrolyzers, which are used to decarbonize hydrogen production for industrial applications. 

“Hydrogen is used in a vast majority of things that we see and work with today — so everything from the food we eat to the plastics we touch. It’s even possible to be used in the metals and glass that we see in our windows,” Mason said. “So it’s a very important product and commodity, and it must be decarbonized to have a fully sustainable planet.” 

The Milwaukee-based company was recently selected for a $500,000 federal award by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. According to an overview from the DOE, current electrolyzers “suffer from low efficiencies and high capital cost,” driving up the cost of hydrogen from electrolysis. 

By integrating with industrial processes and using “abundant, low-grade process and waste heat,” Advanced Ionics’ technology can reduce these costs, DOE says. 

Mason says the two-year ARPA-E grant will fund efforts to improve the durability of the company’s technology. 

“Anytime you bring a new technology to market, customers want to know, is this reliable, is this durable?” he said. “So this effort will really accelerate that process, allow us to hire some extra people and really hit the gas.” 

Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison: