The Essential Element has developed the solar-powered Hydra water purifier and fuel cell.
The Hydra is equipped with a 2.88 kW solar panel array that runs a pump that pushes water through a self-cleaning filtration device (capable of purifying 87,000 liters a day), juices up lead-acid gel batteries and runs an electrolyzer that splits some of that water to fill a .37 cubic-meter tank with pressurized hydrogen.
Hawaii-based The Gas Company and General Motors announced plans to provide hydrogen to fuel cell cars by 2015.
The new approach is meant to address one of the biggest challenges with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles: the lack of widespread infrastructure for refueling. In some ways, Hawaii is the ideal place to start using these vehicles widely, since you only need a couple dozen fueling stations for the whole island of Oahu. The new approach could also be environmentally friendly, especially if The Gas Company follows through with its plans to make hydrogen out of plant and animal oils, and to capture it from landfills.
MIT researchers have created a virus that can break down water into oxygen and water and eventually store energy.
The bound compounds turned the virus into a mini-antenna, similar to the molecules found in plants that are responsible for absorbing water. Energy absorbed by the virus was able to very efficiently split water in to oxygen and hydrogen gases.
Left free, the viruses would clump together and stop efficiently processing water. However, the researchers took the extra step of embedding them in a hydrogel to prevent clumping.
eHydrogen Solutions introduced its H-Solaris Generator design, which uses solar energy as the main source of power for a hydrogen fuel cell.
The H-Solaris Generator design does something the company calls “On Demand Hydrogen Production (ODHP).” The company stated that advances and funding in photoelectrolysis and artificial photosynthesis technologies have brought these processes to the point for use in its projects that, “together with advanced electrolysis technologies,” they can be “integrated into a fuel cell, hydrogen powered generator and/or advanced battery storage, will enable sufficient hydrogen production to power a home; only using the sun and water.”
Students in Ponaganset (Rhode Island) High School teacher Ross McCurdy’s class converted a Model T to run on hydrogen fuel cells.
The project is being done in two phases. First we converted it from a roaring Chevy 350 V8 gas engine to electric power, and for the second phase we are integrating a 12 kilowatt Hydrogenics fuel cell, fueled by twin Lincoln composite transportation grade hydrogen cylinders,” McCurdy says.
The Norwegian government is considering a proposal to ban gasoline-only cars by 2015.
Carmakers could only sell new cars that run fully or partly on fuels such as electricity, biofuels or hydrogen.
Hybrids using fossil fuels and electricity would still be permitted.
With a goal of being a zero-emissions society by the middle of this century, Iceland is welcoming hydrogen-fueled cars.
This is no ordinary Shell station. Just to one side, where you might expect to find diesel pumps, stands the world’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station. Pull up in your hydrogen-powered car, swipe your credit card, attach the pump fixture, and in five minutes you’ll be back on the road, your tank full of emissions-free fuel produced right at the filling station from water and sustainably generated electricity.
Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Catalysis have developed a way to convert formic acid into hydrogen for use in fuel cells.
The researchers from Rostock have now developed a feasible process for the on-demand release of hydrogen; they produce hydrogen from formic acid (HCO2H). In the presence of an amine (e.g. N,N-dimethylhexylamine) and with a suitable catalyst (e.g. the commercially available ruthenium phosphine complex [RuCl2(PPH3)2]), formic acid is selectively converted into carbon dioxide and hydrogen at room temperature. A simple activated charcoal filter is enough to purify the hydrogen gas for use in a fuel cell. The use of formic acid for “hydrogen storage” allows the advantages of established hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell technology to be combined with those of liquid fuels. Formic acid is nontoxic and easy to store. Because formic acid can be generated catalytically from CO2 and biomass-derived hydrogen, the cycle is CO2 neutral in principle.
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