At first blush, it would seem that Elbaz and Noked are more than familiar with the challenges faced by industry: Elbaz’s own technology for emissions-free energy storage—a proprietary liquid hydrogen carrier that enables the efficient, long-distance transportation of hydrogen—is the basis for Refhuel, a green-tech startup founded in 2022. Meanwhile, his work on PGM-free catalysts, key to the energy-converting process in fuel cells, is helping drive new advances in industrial R&D. For his part, former Krill Prize winner Noked is a national and international leader in the development of thin protective films for energy-storage materials, which open the door to new, clean electrochemical devices from sensors to purification systems to batteries. His research on all-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs), which hold the potential to improve energy density, safety, and battery lifetime compared to traditional liquid electrolyte batteries, was also published in nature nanotechnology last year.

In addition to their academic success, however, both researchers are eager to connect with industry players in the clean-energy space. “Electrochemist Prof. (emeritus) Doron Aurbach, who heads the NISE together with Prof. Yoed Tsur from the Technion, has declared it as a goal to make Israel a global pioneer in successfully addressing the climate crisis,” says Elbaz. “Achieving that goal will require an entire ecosystem, and that is exactly what we plan to build.”