One of my favorite invention ideas, one that I’ve tried to get the DoE to fund, is a membrane hydrogen generator where the waste gas is burnt to heat the reactor. The result should be exceptional efficiency, low-cost, low pollution, and less infrastructure needs. Having failed to interest the government, I’ve gone and built one on my own dime. That’s me on the left, with Shua Spirka, holding the new core module (reactor, boiler, purifier and purifier) sized for personal car fueling.

Me and Shua and our new hydrogen generator core

The core just arrived from the shop last week, now we have to pumps and heat exchangers. As with our current products, the hydrogen is generated from methanol water, and extracted 99.99999% pure by diffusion through a metal membrane. This core fit in a heat transfer pot (see lower right) and the pot sits on a burner for the waste gas. Control is tricky, but I think I’ve got it. If it all works like it’s supposed to, the combination should be 80-90% energy-efficient, delivering about 75 slpm, 9 kg per day. That’s the same output as our largest current electrically heated generators, with a much lower infrastructure cost. The output should be enough to fuel one hydrogen-powered automobile per day, or keep a small fleet of plug-in, hydrogen-hybrids running continuously.

Hydrogen automobiles have a lot of advantages over Tesla-type electric automobiles. I’ll tell you how the thing works as soon as we set it up and test it. Right now, we’ve got other customers and other products to make.

Robert Buxbaum, February 18, 2016. If someone could supply a good hydrogen compressor, and a good fuel cell, that would be most welcome. Someone who can supply that will be able to ride in a really excellent cart of the future at this year’s July 4th parade.