DIY hydrogen: solar separation, home fueling
Sure, sourcing and transport of hydrogen seemed formerly intractable problems.
But, forget about all that infrastucture, says Australian fuel cell scientist Dr. Sukhvinder Badwal.
Badwal’s reseach group at CSIRO in Melbourne has developed a home fueling station that uses solar and wind energy to make electricity which then makes hydrogen, and stores it in a corner of your garage (via green wombat).
How’s that one: no piping infrastructure, no transmission losses, no nuclear plants or fossil fuels to make the stuff.
It produces enough in a day to run your car about 100 miles.
Badwal says. “This is a leap frog technology.”
The heart of the fuel station is an electrolyzer – essentially a fuel cell run in reverse. An electric current from solar panels (a home wind turbine would also do the job) separates water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The hydrogen is compressed and stored, ready for use in a fuel-cell car or an electric/hydrogen hybrid with an engine converted to run on the gas.
Prototype testing of the home fueling system begin this month at RMIT University in Melbourne, with commercial trials two years off.
Obstacles remain, including the cost of hydrogen cars, but the technology could go a long way to making the family wagon carbon-neutral.
Get me one of these and I might even get a car!
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