Hydrofill- First Portable Desktop Hydrogen Generator
Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, a Singaporean company will launch this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the world’s first portable desktop hydrogen generator.
Called the HYDROFILL, the device plugs into a power supply, a small wind turbine or a solar panel and automatically extracts hydrogen from its water tank. After that, the generated hydrogen is stored in a solid form in small refillable cartridges. The cartridges contain metallic alloys that absorb hydrogen into their crystalline structure. According to the company, this storage method offers the highest volumetric energy density of any form of hydrogen storage.
“We no longer need to rely on nationwide networks of hydrogen fueling stations to enable large-scale fuel cell commercialization,” said Horizon co-founder Taras Wankewycz. “Horizon is initiating a transition that places consumers in the driving seat. Thanks to our innovation each household can gradually become a major part of tomorrow’s hydrogen fuel supply infrastructure.”
Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies claims that this portable hydrogen generating device s the first step toward private refueling of new generations of fuel cell electric cars where all the hydrogen for the vehicle is generated by the owner.
[Source: Gizmag]
James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil says:
February 4th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
“highest volumetric energy density of any form of hydrogen storage.” More details are needed. How much hydrogen per CC? ow many catridges will it take to operate a car for 400-500 miles at 60-70 mph? If you’re on a trip, you would need even more than that. Would there be places to exchange cartridges? How many refills will a cartridge accept? How is the Hydrogen extracted from the cartridge to use as fuel?
So many questions, so few asnwers. This starts to sound like vaporware.
kaonashi says:
February 4th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
So… once you get the hydrogen into the cartridges, how do you use it? This seems to be just a storage solution, without any thought to usage.
Steve S says:
February 9th, 2010 at 8:42 am
The storage technology is over thirty years old. BNL studied it as have many others.. Storing H2 in metal hydrides is safe, you can shoot it and it doesn’t explode, however at that time it took 900 pounds of hydride to store 11 pounds of H2 yielding about 10mpg. So the biggest restriction was cost of the material, and weight so it found application only on large vehicles such as busses at that time. The H2 was injected at high pressure and was then slowly released by raising the tank temperature slighlty above abient. At that point you burn it like any other fuel. Cars have been run on H2 for decades with modifications to the fuel and air mixing systems. Until an H2 infrastructure is created the use will be severely limited.
unbound says:
February 15th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Right concept…not sure if it actually works. Any verification of this?
Breaking the hydrogen out of water takes more energy than you are going to recover, but pairing it with a solar panel is the correct long-term solution.