It looks like something you’d see powering the DeLorean in “Back To The Future,” but really, it’s a portable hydrogen generator.
In December, AlumiFuel Power, Inc announced that with the help of its manufacturing partner, Apex Piping Systems, API’s PBIS-1000 was ready for mass production and generators would be ready for delivery early this year.
“We are of course very excited about the delivery of our first production unit hydrogen generator,” said Sean McIntosh, API’s Director of Engineering. “But we are even more excited about having a very robust and agile manufacturing system in place to quickly and easily ramp up our production in a very cost-effective manner. And there is nothing in the market that even comes close to this unit in terms of its versatility to handle a variety of applications.”
The company’s portable hydrogen generator can produce hydrogen in 20 minutes and it does not produce any greenhouse gases. Hydrogen produced by the unit can be used in fuel cells and many other hydrogen systems, the company said in a press release.
The PBIS-1000 uses a chemical reaction from water, aluminum and additives to generate 1,000 liters of hydrogen.
Two 32-ounce cartridges, which look a lot like oversized soda cans, are loaded into the generator’s reactor vessels. Each cartridge contains aluminum powder and proprietary additives.
After pouring water into the tank, the user most use the PBIS-1000’s hand pump to inject the water into the cartridges and complete the hydrogen generation process.
The PBIS-1000 was initially developed as an inflation system for weather balloons (PBIS actually stands for Portable Balloon Inflation System).
Because the generator uses light, unpressurized canisters to transport the hydrogen, the company said the PBIS-1000 is safer than other electrolysis systems that use heavy cylinders that are highly pressurized and difficult to handle.
API thinks that it’s easy to manage size and lower cost makes it stand out against its competitors with generators on the market. And the company takes great pride in the fact that the generator was manufactured in the United States.
“In an age of frequent international outsourcing, we have kept the production of nearly all of our generator components very local,” said John Boyle, API’s Chief Technology Officer. “While beneficial to the U.S. economy at large, keeping our production local was driven by one very practical concern: quality of components. When it comes to the kind of high quality components needed in any system involving hydrogen, the U.S. is still the world leader. And many of the best U.S. manufacturers are found right here on the East Coast.”