Decarbonising industry by splitting methane

College friendships and networks are often considered valuable for future careers. In Hycamite’s case, they were a prerequisite for the company being born.

It all started in 2018, when serial entrepreneur Matti Malkamäki attended the annual meeting of Germany’s Natural Gas Association in Berlin. At the meeting, an innovation in the field of methane pyrolysis was awarded. Always looking for new business ideas, Matti Malkamäki immediately became interested.

Traditionally, clean hydrogen is manufactured through electrolysis, which requires a lot of energy. Malkamäki saw the potential for producing hydrogen in a less energy-intensive and more sustainable way, but soon realised his own shortcomings in the field of chemistry. He therefore reached out to his old classmate from the University of Oulu, Laura Rahikka. She recalls the phone call:

“Basically Matti wanted to know if it was possible to produce hydrogen by splitting methane. I said I had to check it with my university colleagues, which I did. They fetched an old test reactor and tested the process, and it was immediately evident that it worked.”

Laura Rahikka has a background in process engineering and was at that time working as a university lecturer. Little did she know that she would soon become the CEO of a promising startup.

The possibility of manufacturing hydrogen by splitting of methane is in fact old news, as the process has been known to chemists for decades already. However, it had never been commercialised before, because prior to sustainability becoming a buzzword, nobody had really cared about the fact that the conventional way of manufacturing clean hydrogen via electrolysis is very energy-consuming.

After their discovery, Rahikka and Malkamäki decided the business idea was so tempting that a company had to be founded. Together with an old colleague, Niina Grönqvist, they founded Hycamite in early 2020.

Initially, Hycamite saw carbon as a by-product, but soon realised its value as a raw material

“Although the process worked from a theoretical point of view, we knew from the start that a lot of research was required to refine it. The biggest question was what kind of catalyst to use”, Rahikka says.

From the start, Hycamite hired researchers from the University of Oulu to develop the process. They soon found catalysts that worked well, and have been developing them ever since. The catalysts’ main purpose is to lower the reaction temperature, but depending on which catalyst is used, the quality of the carbon that comes out of the process can also be influenced. The different catalysts used are a trade secret as they are the factor that makes Hycamite’s solution special.

“The catalyst is actually the core of our process, everything else around it is just basic process engineering”, Rahikka explains.

When methane is split, you get hydrogen and carbon. The carbon is solid, which means it will not accelerate global warming. Initially, Hycamite saw the carbon as a less interesting by-product, but quickly Laura Rahikka and her colleagues realised that the carbon could actually become a valuable raw material.

“Depending on the catalyst used, we can impact the quality and tailor the carbon to fit various customer needs. We discovered that we could manufacture industrial-grade carbon products such as battery-grade graphite or carbon nanofibers. This was a significant finding, as 75 percent of the material we get from our process is carbon whereas only 25 percent is hydrogen.”

Alongside finding solutions to the chemical challenges, Hycamite had another challenge to solve that any startup will face – finding investors and securing funding. Luckily, Matti Malkamäki had been in the game before and knew the right people. Another fact that helped Hycamite find investors was the company’s strong focus on emission reduction and energy-efficiency – after all, conventional ways of producing hydrogen are either heavily polluting or require up to eight times more energy than Hycamite’s process. Hycamite’s process is carbon neutral, and if biogas is used as a raw material instead of natural gas, the products can even become carbon negative.

“In the beginning, we managed to get three Finnish family-owned investment companies on board that all have a strategy of investing in cleantech companies. In addition, we got governmental support from the ELY Center. I wouldn’t say it has been exactly easy to find investors, but we benefit greatly from our cleantech approach”, Rahikka says.

We discovered that we could manufacturate battery-grade graphite and carbon nanofibers

After the start, Hycamite attracted new investors from abroad. In its series A investment round, Hycamite received a total of €44 million from a group of strategic and financial investors, both from Finland and abroad.

In late 2024, Hycamite already had 65 employees and had built its first facility in Kokkola, Finland. There is a great range of potential customers in the chemical, energy and gas sectors.

“This first facility in Kokkola is a so-called Customer Sample Facility, where we can test our process on an industrial scale while at the same time producing carbon samples for our customers.”

Hycamite’s idea is to build new facilities near hydrogen customers’ production facilities, so the hydrogen does not need to be transported. By 2030, Hycamite plans to build 20-30 facilities and there are several in the pipeline already. Most of them are in the USA, as the legislation there is more favourable for cleantech investments compared to Europe. “Our competitive advantage is that it is not really more expensive to produce hydrogen with our method compared to conventional, more polluting or energy-intensive methods. This usually comes as a surprise to potential customers, so our sales are often about educating them. But it really is a no-brainer – if you can get a cleaner process for the same amount of money, why wouldn’t you?”

Timeline

July 2019

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