From a home garage to a technology powerhouse



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December 1, 2025

Turning carbon into opportunity: OCOchem’s bold mission

From a home garage to a technology powerhouse

OCOchem CEO Todd Brix likes to say that green chemistry runs in his family. His father, Terry Brix, was a green chemistry “serial entrepreneur” long before the phrase was common. Terry started 18 companies in Washington, all focused on creating sustainable chemicals from waste biomass. After earning a chemical engineering degree from the University of Washington, Todd went to work at Chevron Research and Technology Company, where he worked in oil refineries and dealt with early forms of green hydrogen.

OCOchem’s R&D Laboratory in Richland, WA

Aerial view of OCOchem’s R&D Laboratory in Richland, WA. Photo courtesy of OCOchem.

 

Growing up in that environment, Todd recognized hydrogen’s potential as an awesome chemical with a variety of uses. But he also understood its biggest challenge: storing and transporting it safely, since it’s a highly explosive gas. That problem sparked his curiosity, and eventually his own research and development.

Todd spent six months digging through global research at the UW library, tracking down innovative processes, licensing intellectual property, assembling a team, and developing a business model in his Woodinville garage. The core invention was small-scale CO₂ electrolyzers — machines that convert carbon dioxide into a valuable chemical called formate.

In 2020, after completing their planning and prototype work, Todd and his father launched OCOchem. From there, Todd opened a full-scale lab, securing early funding, and expanded the vision that started in a garage.

The domino effect of early funding

That’s when the Department of Commerce stepped in. Early funding from Commerce’s Clean Energy Fund, a $1.5 million award that matched the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen EarthShot initiative, was pivotal. This initial boost drew additional support from U.S. Department of Energy and the Centralia Coal Transition Fund, as well as private investors from around the world.

Todd Brix stressed that without strong investment in research and development, true innovation just can’t happen. "I’m grateful to be in Washington state and have my state support me," said Brix. "It certainly helped to advance this technology."

From a lab to a large scale

By January 2024, OCOchem had built the world’s largest CO₂ electrolyzer cell, a 1.5-square-meter unit about the size of a dinner table. It works by using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen on one side of the cell, then mixing the hydrogen with CO₂ on the other side to create formate, a process known as CO₂ electrolysis. The system started small in 2020 and was scaled up three times to reach its current size.

"Think of an electrolyzer like a kitchen appliance that works in reverse of a battery," Brix explained. "A battery stores electricity and gives it back when you need it. A CO₂ electrolyzer uses electricity to take water apart into hydrogen and oxygen and then uses that hydrogen to combine with CO₂ to make formate in a single step."

Doing this in one step means OCOchem doesn’t have to produce and store hydrogen gas separately or run it through high-temperature, high-pressure systems. That makes the process safer and less expensive. And because the formate is made from CO₂, releasing hydrogen from it later is carbon-neutral.

 

OCOchem’s pilot plant in Richland

OCOchem’s pilot plant in Richland. Photo courtesy of OCOchem.

Impact on communities

OCOchem’s innovation could transform how we power vehicles, produce chemicals, and manage carbon emissions. Instead of releasing CO₂ into the air, OCOchem’s process makes it valuable to capture that resource, helping industries decarbonize, displacing products made from and by fossil fuels, while creating jobs and building new markets.

OCOchem is scaling up its technology to show how carbon emissions can be turned into solutions. Its principal research and development laboratories are in Richland, and in August 2025 the company announced a partnership with ADM to build a demonstration plant in Decatur, Illinois. The plant will turn 10,000 tons of CO₂ from ethanol production into formate each year, cutting emissions equal to taking about 16,000 cars off the road.

At the same time, OCOchem is developing portable “green” generators, which are quiet, nonpolluting alternatives to diesel engines that run on formate fuel and could power events, construction sites and even food trucks.

Building the hydrogen economy

From garage experiments to global partnerships, OCOchem’s journey highlights the power of innovation in addressing climate change for Washington communities and beyond. With reformer technology on the horizon to produce hydrogen for vehicles, buildings and backup power, the company is positioning itself at the center of the hydrogen economy.

Brix is dedicated to transforming waste carbon dioxide into useful products and making green hydrogen easier to use. And he’s succeeding at flipping the incentives, so society stops rewarding fossil fuel extraction and instead treats CO₂ as a resource for building a cleaner, more efficient future.

His family legacy in clean fuel is ongoing, too: Todd’s daughter is also a chemical engineer, picking up the knowledge of her father and grandfather and the things she learned watching them turn a family experiment in green chemistry into a technology powerhouse.

Visit the OCOchem website [ [link removed] ] to learn more about the company and its mission.








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