As the CEO of Membravo and former SRI entrepreneur-in-residence, Joe Sawa is harnessing a novel SRI-invented polymer membrane to feed the world’s need for pure hydrogen.
Hydrogen is poised to play a critical role in the global energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables. The challenge: It’s not so easy to isolate. Drawing on his experience with hydrogen projects at Shell, Membravo CEO and co-founder Joe Sawa knew how difficult it can be to cost-effectively separate hydrogen from other gases, and recognized an opportunity to save heavy industries billions of dollars while significantly reducing carbon emissions. Here, he shares his path to entrepreneurship and explains how Membravo’s strategic partnership with SRI could drastically reduce hydrogen waste and the cost of separating pure hydrogen.
I grew up in the Midwest, where my dad’s mechanical know-how inspired an interest in hands-on projects. When I was a kid, we built and repaired bikes and launched model rockets; as I got older, we moved to working on boats and motorcycles. These experiences instilled a love of building and a problem-solving mindset that shaped my career.
At 19, I traveled to Nigeria during my first summer of college to work on a drinking water project. That experience — and two subsequent trips during undergrad — profoundly influenced my perspective on tackling global challenges. I developed an appreciation for practical, impactful solutions and became deeply interested in addressing critical infrastructure issues. I also experienced how access to affordable energy is closely tied to human prosperity.
“To continue growing the hydrogen market, we need a better method of cost-effectively isolating hydrogen within existing industrial infrastructure.” — Joe Sawa
After earning a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I joined Shell, where I designed, built, and operated complex energy systems in Houston and Brazil. Later, I transitioned to Shell Hydrogen in San Francisco, which allowed me to pursue a growing interest in decarbonization. I began my MBA at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business in 2020, where I focused on energy and sustainability and realized I had the potential to create something impactful for the energy transition.
After graduating from Haas, I met my co-founder, Milad Yavari, through a Y Combinator platform. Milad, a research engineer at SRI, was part of the team that had developed advanced hydrogen separation membranes that perform exceptionally well in real-world conditions. The team had also honed the manufacturing process. Milad and I decided to join forces to create a startup to address a stubborn problem: Tens of billions of dollars of hydrogen, which is used extensively in industry, are burned as waste every year. This hydrogen is mixed with other gasses, cannot be cost-effectively separated by existing technologies, and gets burned as waste, which generates significant economic losses and produces unnecessary CO2 emissions. To continue growing the hydrogen market, we need a better method of cost-effectively isolating hydrogen within existing industrial infrastructure.
We presented our plan to commercialize SRI’s technology to Zafeiria Panou and Todd Stavish on the SRI ventures team, who invited me to become an entrepreneur-in-residence to incubate the venture. After months of market research and customer validation, we were confident in this opportunity, and launched the company. Membravo’s next-generation polymer membranes act as filters, allowing hydrogen to pass through, but blocking other gases. They are specifically engineered to withstand the extreme heat, pressure, and harsh chemicals of industrial environments. Through discussions with customers, we’ve identified applications for our membranes across nearly every process involving hydrogen production, consumption, distribution, and storage. After multiple successful field tests in real-world conditions, we are now scaling Membravo’s technology for pilot deployments with customers.
Being an entrepreneur-in-residence at SRI has been amazing. Its ecosystem of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs know how to get innovation done. Membravo, for example, benefits from $10 million of previous R&D work at SRI funded by the Department of Energy. I’ve added an advisor to our company — a former SRI entrepreneur-in-residence with experience from spin-out to exit. I have a network of entrepreneurs I can reach out to with questions — founders who’ve been in my position before. Another thing I love is simply the camaraderie in the halls at SRI. If I wasn’t here, I’d be home in my office, and that would be a very lonely journey. Here, there are other start-ups down the hall, and we solve problems together.
I’m incredibly excited to continue building Membravo. We’re currently fundraising, expanding our team, and engaging with industrial customers on pilot projects, all of which will help us scale Membravo’s technology and contribute to a cleaner, more efficient future for our planet.
To learn more about Membravo and other SRI-backed startups, connect with our SRI ventures team.
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory under Award Number DE-FC26-07NT43090.
