The people
Martin Baumgärtl and Gianluca Pauletto share a passion for chemistry and sustainable energy technologies. Baumgärtl, who was born in Altötting, Germany, studied chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and earned his doctorate with a dissertation on heterogeneous catalysis.
Pauletto is from Castelfranco Veneto, Italy; he studied chemical and process engineering at the University of Padua and earned his doctorate in Canada. His research into more efficient uses of natural gas led to the idea of using electricity to heat chemical processes. Drawing on Baumgärtl’s expertise, they further developed the approach and founded the TUM spin-off Sypox.
The vision
“We want to drive forward the electrification of energy-intensive chemical processes,” says Baumgärtl, describing Sypox’s goal. The company’s technology replaces fossil fuels in high-temperature industrial processes with electricity to heat the reactors. As a result, synthetic fuels (e-fuels), as well as hydrogen, methanol, and other basic chemicals, can be produced with significantly lower emissions in the future. The founders are currently working on their first commercial, electrically heated 10-megawatt reformer, which is intended to produce synthesis gas for methanol production in Denmark.