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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A new investment in hydrogen, made by the sustainability-focused AP Ventures, bodes well for South Africa. AP Ventures, an independent venture capital fund that invests in early-stage companies that use platinum group metals (PGMs), has invested €5-million equity in HPNow, which has introduced a new environmentally-protective way of producing hydrogen peroxide, a chemical used in wastewater treatment and purification, paper bleaching, chemical production, electronics, detergents, cosmetics and as a biocide. The Copenhagen innovator produces green hydrogen peroxide with the help of iridium, a PGM that Southern Africa hosts to a far greater extent than any other region of the world, and AP Ventures is looking to support the deployment of these green hydrogen peroxide systems in South Africa. A big part of AP Ventures’ investing focus had been around hydrogen, which is a significant user of PGMs in many applications, and which is being considered by more than 70 countries as a future universal energy carrier. Of the six backers of the London-headquartered AP Ventures, Anglo American Platinum and the Public Investment Corporation of South Africa are the two founding investors, with Mitsubishi Corporation, the Toyota-linked Mirai Creation Fund, Plastic Omnium and Sumitomo Corporation being the other four. Earlier this year, AP Ventures hired its first two South African employees and at last month’s roundtable held by South Africa’s Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, South Africa's Department of Science and Innovation power director Cosmas Chiteme said that, from government’s perspective, building a PGMs industry social compact was being pursued as part of South Africa’s official Hydrogen Society Roadmap development process, which is well under way. Mining Weekly can report that HPNow will use the latest equity funding to scale up and expand the market for its sought-after autonomous on-site hydrogen-peroxide generation technology solutions. AP Ventures led the funding round in tandem with existing shareholder Evonik Venture, which funds innovative technologies. “We are also looking to support the deployment of these systems domestically in South Africa, through a licence agreement we concluded with the company,” AP Ventures founding partner Kevin Eggers stated in an emailed response to Mining Weekly, and added that a number of interesting leads were being followed up. “We look across all technologies that use and enable the use of PGMs,” Eggers told the 2020 PGMs Industry Day, hosted by resources4africa and chaired by mining stalwart Bernard Swanepoel. AP Ventures associate Michelle Robson, who led the investment into HPNow on behalf of AP Ventures, responded in writing to these questions: Mining Weekly: Why has AP Ventures invested in autonomous on-site clean hydrogen peroxide generation? Hydrogen peroxide is a common chemical used as wastewater treatment, bleaching agent, and biocide. Upon use, it breaks down into pure water and hydrogen. However, it is traditionally produced from fossil-based fuel in large-scale plants and at high concentrations, which makes logistics and storage costly, and because of associated safety concerns, highly challenging. HPNow solves this industry constraint by enabling consumers to generate hydrogen peroxide on demand from on-site, small-volume, scalable systems, using a benign and abundant feedstock. The company’s autonomous, safe, low-impact hydrogen peroxide production technology is an exciting example of the emerging ‘Power-to-X’ economy, which will be a critical lever in the global efforts towards decarbonisation. As a fund, AP Ventures invests in innovative technologies that address today’s big global challenges. HPNow’s technology offers an exciting ‘Power-to-X’ alternative for hydrogen peroxide generation, a tangible example of how electricity, as a feedstock, can decarbonise society’s current and future inputs and in...