Suiso

Suiso is a Rotherham-based cleantech company solving one of the central challenges in the energy transition: how to produce green hydrogen cheaply enough and locally enough to make it commercially viable for industrial users. Traditional production methods — either grid-powered electrolysis or steam methane reforming — are either too expensive or too carbon-intensive to unlock widespread adoption. Suiso's answer is a proprietary microwave-driven methane cracking process that extracts hydrogen from natural gas or biogas at significantly lower temperatures, pressures, and energy inputs than competing technologies.

The company's generators are designed to be built in shipping container format and installed on-site at factories, hospitals, warehouses, or hydrogen vehicle filling stations. This eliminates the high distribution costs of centralised hydrogen plants, which have historically been one of the biggest barriers to adoption. The process captures carbon not as CO2 but as carbon black — a solid, commercially valuable material used in the manufacture of tyres, batteries, and inks. Suiso's technology uses 80% less electrical energy than electrolysis and produces emissions 97% lower than steam methane reforming, making it one of the lowest-carbon production pathways available. The company won the BEIS Low Carbon H2 Supply scheme in 2023, validating its approach independently.

Suiso raised £3M from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund managed by Mercia Ventures to scale its technology and begin a pilot project, targeting generators capable of producing 1,000 kg of hydrogen per day — enough to fuel 50 twenty-tonne trucks. Founded in 2021 by Stuart McKnight and Dr SB Cha, the company is backed by institutional investors with deep experience in the UK clean energy sector and is planning to create at least seven new jobs in its next phase of growth.