Meet HSL Technologies – a French deep tech company that’s part of EIC Scaling Club’s Clean Fuels & Hydrogen Group. HSL is rethinking a niche but important part of industrial supply chains: precipitated silica. Its patented HydroSil technology uses a liquid carrier route to produce and transport precipitated silica more efficiently, while also generating hydrogen as a valuable byproduct.

At first glance, silica may seem like a narrow technical topic. But it is used at an industrial scale, moved through complex supply chains and tied to sectors under growing pressure to reduce emissions. That is where HSL’s technology finds its opportunity: in making a widely used material lower-carbon, easier to transport and more valuable.

What is precipitated silica?

Silica is a mineral compound found naturally in sand and quartz, but in industrial form, it can be engineered for different uses. One of these is precipitated silica – a fine, synthetic form of silica used in tyres and rubber goods, toothpaste, paints, plastics and other products, where it can help reinforce materials, control texture, etc.

Because precipitated silica is used across so many industries, its production and transport also carry a significant environmental footprint. HSL’s idea is to reduce that footprint by changing how silica is made and moved. HydroSil connects this materials challenge with the hydrogen logistics problem that shaped the company’s early development.

From a lab discovery to hydrogen logistics

Founded in 2015 by Pierre-Emmanuel Casanova and Vincent Lôme, HSL Technologies grew out of research at Aix-Marseille University, where, by chance, a molecule capable of spontaneously releasing hydrogen was discovered.

HydroSil was then developed to address a practical logistics problem: how to store and transport hydrogen more easily. Doing it at scale is difficult, especially when conventional approaches require compression, cooling, or dedicated infrastructure.

HydroSil offers a different approach. The liquid carrier can be handled at ambient temperature and pressure and used with existing liquid infrastructure, avoiding the need for high-pressure or cryogenic systems. Belén Moreno of HSL Technologies explained the practical idea behind the system:

“By using the same infrastructures that we use for transporting gasoline, we can transport our molecule and deliver it in a safe way, which is something that hydrogen is struggling to do today.”

A technology with two outputs

HSL’s original hydrogen-storage proposition has since broadened. The company now presents HydroSil as a platform with two outputs: low-carbon silica for industrial use and hydrogen generated as a byproduct.

In simple terms, the same process links a material output and an energy output: silica is delivered for industrial use, while hydrogen is released as part of the system.

HSL says its approach can transport three times more silica in the same volume than standard bulk form. It also claims that their technology could reduce CO2 emissions by more than 80% for precipitated silica compared with standard processes.

At an industrial scale, this could represent more than one million tons of CO2 saved per plant per year compared with current production methods.

These are company-reported figures, so they should be treated as HSL’s own assessment rather than as an independently verified benchmark. Still, they show the scale of the problem the company is targeting. HSL is trying to make hydrogen logistics cleaner while also lowering the footprint of a widely used industrial material.

Backed for the scale-up phase

HSL Technologies has attracted strategic backing from energy and deep tech investors. In 2023, the company (known as HySiLabs at the time) raised €13 million in Series A funding led by Equinor Ventures, with the European Innovation Council Fund and EDP Ventures among the backers.

For Equinor Ventures, the appeal was the potential of a simpler hydrogen carrier model. Lars Klevjer, head of Equinor Ventures, described “a hydrogen carrier that requires no energy for release” as “a very interesting proposition” for the energy market.

HSL is now preparing for its next industrial step. In its 2026 update, the company said it was continuing its Series B fundraising round to support the construction of an intermediate-scale facility in Fos-Martigues by 2029.

The goal is to validate, at pre-commercial scale, the simultaneous production of renewable hydrogen and low-carbon silica. The same roadmap points toward a first industrial-scale plant by 2032.

A practical route into industrial decarbonisation

Many climate-tech stories focus on technologies people can see: solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, or wind farms. HSL Technologies is working with the materials and logistics systems behind industrial production.

The company aims to help manufacturers access a lower-carbon version of a material they already use, while also making hydrogen easier to store, transport and release.

The company still has important milestones ahead, especially as it moves from reported environmental performance to pre-commercial and industrial-scale production.

But its core idea is clear: by changing the way silica is produced and transported, HSL Technologies is also trying to solve one of hydrogen’s most persistent practical challenges.

About the EIC Scaling Club

The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.

The top 120+ European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.

The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

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