Producing hydrogen from renewable electricity, and turning it back into power when needed, is key to cutting emissions in industry and heavy transport. On 11 February 2026, our research took a step towards that market with the launch of Oxhyd Energy S.L., a Barcelona-based spin-off of IREC and ICREA.
Oxhyd makes solid oxide cells — devices that convert fuel into electricity, or electricity into hydrogen, using a ceramic electrolyte — by 3D printing. Printing the ceramic parts uses less material and allows compact, high-power designs. The same device can work as a fuel cell (generating electricity) or as an electrolyser (producing hydrogen), and can also run on ammonia, biogas or methanol.
- Power density above 2 kW per litre and 0.5 kW per kilogram (company figures)
- Estimated industrial manufacturing cost below €1,000 per kW
- Target applications: maritime transport, data centres and energy-intensive industry
Our role. Oxhyd builds on more than ten years of work in our group on advanced manufacturing and ceramic fuel cells. Its founders are ICREA Professor Albert Tarancón and researchers Juande Sirvent, Marc Torrell and Àlex Morata, together with ICREA. The technology matured in EU-funded projects such as Cell3Ditor and HyP3D.
The company has received the EmergEnt Prize of the Catalonia Efficient Energy Cluster and support from The Collider programme of Mobile World Capital Barcelona, the H2CAT network and AGAUR’s Knowledge Industry programme.
More information: IREC news and press release
