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Bramble Energy receives £5million investment to take forward fuel cell technology

3 August 2020

Bramble Energy Technology Image

Bramble Energy, a spin-out from UCL and Imperial College London, has received investment of £5million to take forward its unique fuel cell technology based on the use of printed circuit boards (PCBs) to construct devices.

Professor Dan Brett, co-inventor of the core technology and co-director of the Electrochemical Innovation Lab (EIL) in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCL, had this to say:

Image of Prof Dan Brett
This Series A investment marks an important step in the company’s progress. It allows us to ‘leave home’, scale-up operations and properly enter the commercialisation phase.” Bramble Energy has been incubated within the EIL since it was founded in 2016. “We have been exceptionally well supported by the Department and Faculty in building the company. We also received critically important Impact Acceleration funding from UCL Innovation and Enterprise to help us through the difficult early period between bright idea and exciting commercial opportunity” said Dan, who is also a co-founder and Director of Innovation at Bramble Energy. 

Dr. Vidal Bharath, COO, Bramble Energy said:

Dr Vidal Bharath
“Hydrogen fuel cells generate electric power from an electrochemical reaction rather than combustion, thereby eliminating carbon emissions from the power unit and producing only water and heat as by-products”.

Dr. Erik Engebretsen, Head of Engineering, Bramble Energy said:

Dr Erik Engebretsen
“The Bramble Energy PCB fuel cell (PCBFC) leverages the huge existing global manufacturing base for PCBs, making the technology very low cost and highly scalable”

Dr. Tom Mason, CEO, Bramble Energy said:

Dr Tom Mason
“The company is taking a portfolio approach, reducing risk and increasing opportunity. We are taking a market approach that sees moving up the kW value chain as and when each lower power market is locked-in. The first market for security, communications and remote monitoring, then on to ‘suitcase’ diesel genset replacement units, followed by the highly lucrative but difficult to penetrate automotive market.” 

Professor Eva Sorensen, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering said: 

Head of Department, Prof Eva Sorensen
“The Department has played an important role in training the Bramble team. Tom, Erik and Vidal all graduated with degrees in Chemical Engineering and completed their PhDs in the EIL, with more ‘EILers’ joining the team in the coming months”.

Lara Rasha, who is completing her PhD and looking forward to starting at Bramble said: 

Studying in the EIL has been great fun and taught me so much about electrochemical engineering, I can’t wait to apply what I have learnt in an industrial context through a university spin-out”. 

Prof. Brett adds that:

“The Bramble Energy technology was based on research originally sponsored by the EPSRC. As an academic, it’s incredibly rewarding to see fundamental research make its way through to commercial reality and derive impact.” 

Useful links

Image credit

  • Bramble Energy