Horizon Unveiling Small Hydrogen Refueling and Storage System for the Home
04 January 2010
Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies will introduce a “personal hydrogen station”—HydroFill—at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The device consumes 60W DC per hour to produce 10 liters of hydrogen (0.001 kg) per hour, enough to fill a HydroStik metal hydride storage cartridge.
HydroFill plugs into an AC outlet (using an adapter), or to a 60W solar panel or small wind turbine.
In 2006, Horizon introduced solar hydrogen powered toy cars. Horizon will introduce a micro-fuel cell power supply called MiniPak, which extends the off-grid runtimes of small electronic devices including cell phones, lighting products, and many USB powered devices. MiniPak uses a HydroStik cartridge, and has rated net power of 2W, with output of 5V @0.4A, with a capacity of 12 Wh.
Horizon will also present an upgraded version of its larger portable off-grid DC power supply system HydroPak. HydroPak offers 60W output (120W peak) using water-activated sodium borohydride cartridges supplied by Horizon. The system has a generating capacity of 200 Wh.
Horizon says that it is already developing larger-size refueling systems that will enable anything from garden equipment to transportation.
So now early adapters can eliminate their troublesome cell phone batteries that require them to suck 3 Watts from the grid (or their PV panels) twice a week and replace them with a 60 Watt HydroFill personal hydrogen station, a HydroStik metal hydride storage cartridge and a soon to be introduced MiniPak micro-fuel cell power supply.
They invented cargo pants just in time – it’s destiny.
Posted by: ToppaTom | 04 January 2010 at 06:17 AM
Happily I am going to be at CES this year (first time). WHen I see them I will ask how this system is better than just plain old batteries. Really, 60Wh to give you 12 Wh storage. Shows the typical "efficiencies" of a Hydrogen Fuel Cell system.
Posted by: Eletruk | 04 January 2010 at 09:26 AM
Hmmm. How much hydrogen in 12Wh? Will the MiniPak be allowed on airplanes?
Posted by: Nick Lyons | 04 January 2010 at 11:40 AM
Its 1 gram of h2. Now normaly at 50% eff 1 gram would give you 16.65 wh of power but obviously this bugger is much elss eff then that. Also current electrolysis units are up to 85% eff but this one is alot less eff.
Anyway the main point is to allow alot more power in a small form factor.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 04 January 2010 at 12:43 PM
Fast Company has a good blog post on this also... Good point from the post: "Granted, fuel cells are capable of storing a lot of energy, but why would someone go for the Hydrofill and attach a separate solar panel when they could just buy a solar-powered battery charger and be done with it? At the very least, the Hydrofill might begin to make people more comfortable with the idea of hydrogen power, but it's not likely to make a big dent in the portable charger market."
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/horizon-brings-hydrogen-fuel-cells-closer-mainstream
Posted by: ejj | 04 January 2010 at 07:23 PM
Well remember the hydrostick tanks are cheap so likely someone say needing to run a bonch of small thingies could cart aroundsome spare sticks and run everything all week long away from a recharger then cart them all back home and refill them in a day.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 04 January 2010 at 09:08 PM
If as som many at GCC state the goal is for sustainable energy use, this is a harmless step toward acclimation to H2 energy use.
Not very efficient. Bulky. Clunky, etc. But if you live in the sunbelt and have a reasonable solar array, and want to electrolyze to make some H2 - why sneer? If efficiencies really increase these guys might offer a storage system for CCHP. Wouldn't that be nice?
Posted by: sulleny | 05 January 2010 at 12:09 AM
It's a techno-toy for gadget freaks to one-up their friends. "Sure, it doesn't do anything new... but it does it with HYDROGEN!"
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 05 January 2010 at 12:04 PM
Actualy ep it does do something new. Its 12 wh of energy per stick and the sticks are cheap. I can see this being very useful and specialy if they make upgraded versions in the 5-10w range.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 05 January 2010 at 04:00 PM