Japanese Start-up Plans Hydrogen Fuel Cell For 2014

angry tapir writes "A Japanese start-up says it has finessed a technology that could finally make consumer-grade fuel cells a reality. If successful, the company, Aquafairy, would create a business where many much larger companies have failed. Prototypes of the company's hydrogen fuel cell technology are on show this week at the Ceatec exhibition in Japan where the company's president, Mike Aizawa, said he hopes the first products will be on sale next year."

Comments

Doomed to failure

[Guspaz]

Their specs indicate lower specific energy than lithium ion batteries, combined with a huge base unit. The end result is that you're going to end up with something that is heavier and bulkier than existing USB lithium ion batteries, making it just another gimmick.

I could see them having some success in much larger scale applications, though (like three orders of magnitude).

Re:Doomed to failure

[h4rr4r]

Also they are disposable fuel carts. Making this a non-starter. There is a reason I have not bought disposable batteries in more than a decade.

Re:Doomed to failure

[NatasRevol]

Can you imagine their product lines?

This is our princess line.
These tiny ones are our oompa loompa models.
This special one is our queenie.

...Aisle 7, right next to the plutonium.

[pla]

Right. Because 3000psi hydrogen gas makes a much more convenient storage medium than a plastic gallon jug of methanol or ethanol.

Re:...Aisle 7, right next to the plutonium.

[necro81]

You must have glossed over the part of the article where it states that the hydrogen fuel is not stored as a high-pressure gas:

the company has developed a treatment that turns it into a sold form that's safe to handle but is still useful as a fuel

Details aren't mentioned in the article, but there have been a variety of groups demonstrating various powders and matrices that absorb the gaseous hydrogen and release it later (in response to gentle heating, a drop in vapor pressure, etc.), a so-called hydrogen sponge.

Cheap Hydrogen

[foxalopex]

Hydrogen Fuel-Cell systems are interesting but I suspect the whole idea doesn't work. There's still a problem of how you're actually suppose to produce the hydrogen for cheap. Imagine developing a combustion engine while you haven't even worked out a process to drill or refine oil for the engine. Besides, I'm not sure folks would want to buy fuel for their laptop rather than just plugging it in for few pennies of electricity.

Re:Cheap Hydrogen

[taiwanjohn]

I reckon this is more about convenience than efficiency. Look at the popularity of "brick" batteries to keep your smartphone going all day. This is the part I found interesting:

the company has developed a treatment that turns [hydrogen] into a sold form that's safe to handle but is still useful as a fuel

So apparently their business model is to sell packets of "hydrogen-goop" in your local 7-11. Hey, as long as it's reasonably safe for the user and the environment, go for it. Who knows? It might actually take off.

Re:Cheap Hydrogen

[interkin3tic]

That's the chicken and egg argument, yes. The other part is "why would you develop a cheap method of producing hydrogen when there's nothing that uses it." Solving one won't, obviously, magically solve the other, but it will make it much more likely to BE solved.

Re:Cheap Hydrogen

[pixelpusher220]

Imagine developing a combustion engine while you haven't even worked out a process to drill or refine oil for the engine.

You mean like Mr. Diesel did with his engine? It was demoed running on peanut oil in 1901 I think.

Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe. Using the state transition of water/electrolysis to store and release energy means that we have a completely renewable source of hydrogen. 'Using' the fuel simply puts it back into the feedstock state.

Couple that with the fact that more energy hits the earth as sunlight in an 'hour' than we currently use across the entire planet in an entire year and you have all the energy you need to split water into hydrogen.

Re:Low Power

[ColdWetDog]

Nah, you don't really want a pony. They take up a lot of room and smell funny.

And you can't charge your iPhone with it.

Re:Low Power

[Nidi62]

And you can't charge your iPhone with it.

Set up a treadmill attached to a generator and put a salt lick at the front of the treadmill. Problem solved.

Re:Hi, drogen!

[SuricouRaven]

It's cheaper to make hydrogen from fossil fuel directly, though getting it to fuel-cell-worthy efficiency is a very tricky process - even a hint of carbon monoxide destroys fuel cells.

Splitting water has the advantage of changing production rate within seconds, making it ideal for exploiting periods of low electricity demand and thus low electricity price.

Already exists

[SwedishPenguin]

A Swedish company already did this, they call it "myFC" and it's powered by a "puck" of hydrogen. Wether it's useful, I have no idea.
http://www.kth.se/en/forskning/pa-djupet/ladda-mobilen-med-vatten-1.381551
http://powertrekk.com/

Re:Low Power

[cusco]

Sure you can! You just accumulate the methane it produces, purify it, compress it, and burn it in a natural gas generator. No problem, it would only take one wave of the magic wand to get all that working . . .

Re:Hi, drogen!

[LoRdTAW]

Most commercial hydrogen is produced by steam reforming natural gas, not electrolysis.

They key to a hydrogen economy (Ugh, buzzword/phrase) isn't the production of hydrogen but its storage. 3000 PSI (20.68Mpa) cylinders aren't appealing to safety advocates or consumers and other forms of storage haven't panned out. Plus the energy needed to compress hydrogen to high pressures begins to make the overall process much less efficient. Without a method to densely store hydrogen safely, effectively and efficiently, liquid fuels (including liquefied gas) will remain the preferred choice.

Nothing new here

[Joey Vegetables]

It's always been possible to use metal hydrides to, in effect, store and release hydrogen relatively safely. I'm guessing this is another attempt to do the same thing. The problem is economics. Even when stored this way, hydrogen simply does not have the volume density to compete with other forms of energy storage. It is a promising technology that may ultimately prove useful if cheap liquid fuels actually do run out, but until then I have to be a little skeptical.

Re:Low Power

[mlts]

A "large" unit that does 200 watts might be useful for trickle charging batteries on a RV to allow for some boondocking when the solar panels don't give enough power to keep the bank charged... but we already have technologies out that give a better energy/volume than what is stated.

Truma, an European RV appliance maker makes a fuel cell that uses propane. It makes up to 250 watts, which may not run an A/C, but it does a good job at keeping the batteries topped off, which is important because RV furnaces require electricity for the vent fans for the heat exchanger.

There is also the EFOY cell that uses methanol that is starting to be used in RVs in the US (Roadtrek E-treks), but it is still quite expensive. If it starts selling for a bit less, it will go a long way to keeping batteries maintained when a rig is stored or when boondocking.

With all the disadvantages of hydrogen (3600 PSI, while a propane tank will vent at 200 PSI), I'd give this a good start, but still needs work before it would have a real niche here in the US.