The next step for charging our gadgets in an eco-friendly way? The new product Hydrofill released at the CES this year was a major step forward for fuel cell innovation, the Singapore company Horizon has downsized all the science and technology allowing everyone to have their own personal hydrogen generator and portable hydrogen cartridges.
How does it work? Its actually not as complicated as it seems. The Hydrofill system basically extracts hydrogen from water using electrolysis, and stores it in the Hydrostick solid hydrogen cartridge. 60 W DC power is enough to extract 10 liters of hydrogen per hour and fill one of the Hydrostick cartridges. You then take the charged up cartridge and connect it to your phone or laptop, iPod, camera, camcorder, etc, any gadget with a USB connector.
The HydroFill system is clean during use because the chemical reaction that happens in hydrogen fuel cells only produces water vapor and no air pollutants. As an alternative, users may also charge the hydrogen cartridges, via a small solar panel. It’s also compatible with small wind turbines. This sounds as though further “accessories” to aid different methods of charging may be launched by Horizon in due course.
The only drawback which arises out of this invention is the non-refillable nature of the cartridges. This is the only area which needs to be worked at if the company needs to make a mark in off-grid power driven green industry. The HydroFill powerstation system will be priced at $600 while individual fuel cell cartridge MiniPaks $150, it is expected to be available by April this year.
Though this is considered to be more expensive than a standard remote charger, the company hopes that this could be a great approach towards energy enthusiasts and also those who look forward to doing a tiny bit more for the environment.
[via iTechNews, PocketLint]
Non-refillable cartridges?! What's the point of filling them yourself then, why not just ship them full of hydrogen?
Kind of makes the whole thing pointless if you ask me.
Umm, look up Hindenburg.
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Just like to add one BIG correction to an otherwise good article.
These hydrogen cartridges aka hydrostiks are indeed refillable via the hydrofill. I was at CES and Horizon’s co founder told me that each hydrostik has a life span of 200 to 300 refills. This is of course the whole idea behind the hydrofill system. Given this fact, if a hydrostik is depleted once a week, then they should provide a very long usable lifespan of about 5 years!
So let me get this straight you plug this device into your wall and then extract hydrogen from water. That seems sort of wasteful if you ask me. Doesn't doing electrolysis on water take a pretty large amount of energy? I guess if you used the solar panel this thing would be green otherwise I don't see how it is even considered green.
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Ghostery
60 W DC power used to generate and transfer hydrogen into a device which charges a cell phone. How many watts will the device output into the cellphone before the power from the hydrogen is exhausted??? 12? 20? So the expense of 60 W DC produces a much lower power DC?
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