Text | Hu Xiangyun
Editor | Hai Ruojing
36Kr has solely discovered that Yihe Technology has accomplished angel spherical and angel + spherical financing value tens of tens of millions of yuan. The investor within the angel spherical is Xianfeng Changqing, and the investor within the angel + spherical is angel investor Fei Gesheng. The raised funds will probably be primarily used for workforce constructing, laboratory course of optimization, and the pilot check of the first-phase merchandise.
It can be discovered that lately, Yihe Technology has launched a brand new spherical of financing, and Yuewei Capital will nonetheless function the unique monetary advisor for subsequent rounds.
Yihe Technology is especially engaged within the R & D and industrialization of electrochemical synthesis expertise. Jin Qingfeng, the CEO of the corporate, graduated from Zhejiang University and has greater than 20 years of expertise in chemical engineering. He has labored at Air Liquide Group in France and served because the CTO of Cockerill Jingli in Belgium. He led the funding in a 2.5 billion yuan caprolactam new materials mission and has a profound understanding of the industrialization of electrochemical expertise.
In addition, Wang Shuangyin, the secretary and professor of the School of Chemical Engineering at Hunan University, serves because the chief scientist of Yihe Technology, and Zou Yuqin, a professor at Hunan University, serves because the R & D supervisor of Yihe Technology. Both are deeply concerned within the firm’s catalyst R & D and response mechanism analysis. Wang Shuangyin is the recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Fund for 2 phrases and the chief scientist of a key R & D plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
“Considering the future green and sustainable industrial ecosystem, electrochemical technology can provide high – value – added products while achieving efficient carbon emission reduction through the electrification transformation of the traditional chemical industry, which has great social and economic value,” Jin Qingfeng believes.
Electrochemical Synthesis: From “Laboratory” to “Industrialization”
The so – known as electrochemical synthesis primarily entails immediately changing electrical vitality into chemical vitality and utilizing electrons as “reagents” to drive natural chemical reactions. By exactly controlling the utilized voltage to regulate the “energy” of electrons, particular purposeful teams in molecules might be selectively oxidized or diminished to obtain extremely selective chemical transformation.
“Compared with traditional chemical synthesis, electrochemical synthesis has lower costs, higher safety, and can achieve the synthesis of unique molecular structures. Compared with synthetic biology, it has better efficiency and universality, and the difficulty of industrial scale – up is lower,” Jin Qingfeng launched.
Source: Yihe Technology
Based on these benefits, the electrochemical synthesis technique might be utilized to the manufacturing of numerous merchandise: for instance, fantastic chemical substances and pharmaceutical intermediates (corresponding to non – pure amino acids and chiral pharmaceutical intermediates), inexperienced options for the synthesis of excessive – threat chemical substances (corresponding to adiponitrile and natural fluorides), excessive – worth utilization of biomass platform compounds (corresponding to lignin and cellulose), and particular molecules which can be tough to synthesize by conventional strategies.
In the previous, restricted by elements corresponding to R & D capabilities, engineering and gear integration capabilities, and provide chain administration, corporations engaged in electrochemical synthesis manufacturing have been primarily worldwide chemical giants corresponding to BASF and Asahi Kasei, and their functions have been typically course of optimization, value discount, and effectivity enchancment. The world electrochemical synthesis market scale exceeds tens of billions of {dollars}. In particular fields such because the adiponitrile (uncooked materials for nylon 66) and chlor – alkali industries, the electrochemical synthesis technique has even been thought to be the main expertise, with an annual output of lots of of 1000’s of tons, but it surely has lengthy been monopolized by chemical giants.
“This has also created a stereotype in the market that electrochemical synthesis is a technology that only giants like BASF can afford and is only suitable for ultra – large – tonnage products, but this is not the case,” Jin Qingfeng believes.
In current years, towards the background of “green electricity freedom”, a quantity of expertise – pushed startups have emerged each at house and overseas. These corporations often have strong applied sciences and sensible product picks, specializing in excessive – worth – added fantastic chemical substances corresponding to pharmaceutical intermediates, spices, and particular polymer monomers. For instance, they use electrochemistry for selective fluorination, oxidize or cut back particular purposeful teams, or synthesize some non – pure amino acids. Although the market scale of these fields will not be as giant as that of bulk commodities, they’ve excessive earnings. Moreover, the manufacturing routes utilizing conventional synthesis strategies are lengthy and polluting, making them extra appropriate for the appliance of electrochemical expertise.
“These fields are the’main battlefields’ for our electrochemical synthesis startups. Currently, most of them are in the early commercialization or pilot – test stage. It can be said that electrochemical synthesis as a whole is in the stage of moving from the ‘laboratory’ to the ‘industrial factory’,” Jin Qingfeng mentioned.
Technical Barriers and Future Plans
It is reported that Yihe Technology has constructed a scientific manufacturing system from response programs, catalysts, to reactor design and purification processes. Jin Qingfeng launched that the issue in constructing such a system lies in “the in – depth integration of multi – disciplinary knowledge and engineering practice”.
Take the scaling – up impact of electrolytic cells for instance. This is the “valley of death” from laboratory to industrial manufacturing. In a small beaker, mass switch (reactants reaching the electrode floor) and warmth switch (dissipation of response warmth) are very quick. However, when the electrode space is scaled up from a number of sq. centimeters to a number of sq. meters, issues corresponding to uneven potential or present distribution, mass switch limitations, and warmth accumulation typically happen. This requires the workforce to have profound information accumulation in electrochemical engineering and remedy these issues by the design of advanced stream channels (corresponding to zero – pole – pitch and micro – channel design), optimization of fluid dynamics, and growth of environment friendly cooling programs.
In addition, Yihe Technology has independently developed the “Fluid – Guided Electrolytic Cell (FGE)” expertise platform. Through stream – channel design, fluid dynamics optimization, and cooling system integration, it solves the issues of mass switch and warmth switch in giant – scale manufacturing and realizes the connection from the laboratory to industrialization. The FGE expertise platform can shortly replicate its capabilities to extra excessive – worth – added chemical substances by changing completely different electrodes and adjusting course of parameters, thereby shortening the event cycle and price of new merchandise.
“Currently, we are establishing a ‘process – performance’ database for the FGE technology platform and developing a digital twin model. This means that in the future, when we develop a new product, we can quickly screen out the optimal process parameter range through model simulation on the computer. The R & D cycle of new products will be shortened by more than 50%. The goal is to complete the commercial production of 5 – 8 high – value – added products by the end of 2026 and become the technology benchmark and cost leader in the field of electrosynthesis. What we pursue is not only the success of chemical reactions but also the predictable, replicable, and highly intelligent engineering implementation,” Jin Qingfeng mentioned.
It is discovered that the subsequent – stage product pipeline reserved by Yihe Technology has lined fields corresponding to prescription drugs, pesticide intermediates, and new molecules.