Stephen Grot demonstrates the fuel cell test station at Ion Power Inc., Tyrone. Grot and his wife, Wendy, bought the former Smith Automotive building on Washington Avenue in 2018 and are nearly finished with renovations that will bring new jobs to the borough. Ion Power develops, manufactures, and distributes membrane electrode assemblies to the fuel cell and water electrolyzer markets for use in hydrogen or reformate fuel cells. Mirror photo by Walt Frank

A new business bringing new jobs soon will be operational in Tyrone.

Ion Power Inc., founded in New Castle, Del., in 1999 by Stephen and Wendy Grot, should be up and running early next month in what is known as the old Smith Automotive building on Washington Avenue across from Epworth Manor.

The Grots bought the building in September 2018 and have nearly finished renovations.

Ion Power Inc. develops, manufactures and distributes membrane electrode assemblies to the fuel cell and water electrolyzer markets.

It was founded by Grot to promote the use of Nafion. Nafion is a brand name for a sulfonated tetrafluoroethylene-based fluoropolymer-copolymer invented in the late 1960s by his father, Walther Grot of DuPont. Nafion is a brand of the Chemours company.

Ion Power has developed a patented technology for the manufacture of membrane electrode assemblies for use in hydrogen or reformate fuel cells.

Ion Power is a worldwide distributor of Chemours Nafion PFSA materials in pellet, finished membrane, or dispersion forms.

The company is actively engaged in private- and government-sponsored research and development activities that are aimed at improving the performance of fuel cell components.

Stephen Grot started Ion Power after he left General Motors, where he was working on a fuel cell program for electric vehicles.

“We started small in a 1,000-square-foot rollup garage and are now in a 10,000-square-foot building and employ 10 people,” Stephen Grot said.

Tyrone will become the company’s second manufacturing facility. Ion Power also has a distribution warehouse in Munich, Ger­many, for European customers.

The Grots have lived in Germany twice — in Frankfurt and in Munich.

They moved to Tyrone in 2011.

“I am from Tyrone. After 10 years in New Castle, we wanted to expand. He wanted to live in Germany for a year,” Wendy Grot said. “My mom got sick and we came here in 2011. We had been traveling back and forth; it wasn’t working. He couldn’t do his research from that far of a distance. We couldn’t find space and then this building became available.”

Stephen Grot, a Chester County native, said he has grown to like Tyrone and its people.