Two decades ago, while engineers at the Techint Group were refining an electric arc furnace for steel manufacturing, they inadvertently stumbled onto a curious phenomenon. Rather than degrading over time, the carbon electrodes inside the furnace were unexpectedly expanding.
This puzzling event was later identified as a rare instance of pyrolysis—essentially a combustion-like process that occurs without oxygen. In their specific case, the furnace had inadvertently split methane, producing both pure hydrogen gas and pure carbon solids. The discovery was noted internally and swiftly shelved, as no one at the time saw its significance.
“Nobody really showed interest in methane pyrolysis or hydrogen back then,” remarked Tulum Energy CEO Massimiliano Pieri, recalling the incident. Consequently, the intriguing result lay dormant and forgotten for almost twenty years.
Recently, however, the Techint Group’s venture capital division, TechEnergy Ventures, turned its attention toward sustainable hydrogen-generation methods free from carbon dioxide emissions. In exploring potential innovations, someone within Techint remembered the old, archived discovery, prompting the company to revisit and reevaluate it. Recognizing its substantial potential, Techint spun the concept into a standalone venture—Tulum Energy.
Today, Tulum Energy announced a notably successful seed funding round, securing $27 million from prominent investors including TDK Ventures, CDP Venture Capital, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, MITO Tech Ventures, and TechEnergy Ventures. The funding, oversubscribed due to considerable investor enthusiasm, will primarily finance construction of Tulum’s pilot plant located alongside one of Techint’s steel facilities in Mexico.
The core technological advantage setting Tulum apart from other startups championing methane pyrolysis—such as Monolith, Modern Hydrogen, and Molten Industries—is in its reliance on an electric arc furnace rather than costly catalysts. By leveraging a well-established process already familiar in industrial contexts, the startup benefits from significant scalability and reduced barriers to commercialization.
At commercial scale, Tulum Energy anticipates daily production capacity of around two tons of hydrogen and 600 tons of carbon—as pure solids suitable for direct industrial sale. Not only does the method forego carbon dioxide emissions entirely, it can operate cost-effectively, producing one kilogram of hydrogen at approximately $1.50 under ideal U.S. conditions, substantially cheaper than leading green hydrogen processes and comfortably competitive against existing conventional approaches.
Should the pilot initiative in Mexico succeed, Techint Group’s steel facility at that location plans to utilize Tulum-generated hydrogen and carbon in its own operations, closing the loop and underscoring the immediate potential demand for the technology.
In essence, what started twenty years ago as a simple anomaly in a steel production experiment has now become Tulum Energy’s foundation—and a potentially transformative technology for the evolving hydrogen economy.
