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Gridshift electrolyser makes hydrogen at "$2.51 /kg"
Production, May 18 2010 (The Hydrogen Journal)
- GridShift Incorporated of Georgia, USA, has announced that it has developed an electrolyser that can make hydrogen using water and electricity at a cost of $2.51 per kilogram.
The company calculates that if gasoline cost $2.70 a gallon, it could propel a vehicle the same distance for the same cost.
With current US gasoline prices of about $2.90 a gallon, the hydrogen would be slightly cheaper (although that is not taking into account the additional cost of a hydrogen vehicle).
Overall efficiency of electrolysis is 80 per cent.
The electrolyser has a new catalyst made of nano particles, which cost $58 an ounce, replacing the platinum which is normally used and costs around $1700 an ounce.
The electrode is coated on all sides with the catalyst.
It can produce four times more hydrogen for the same surface area of electrode as a typical electrolyser commercially available today, which means that the unit can be four times smaller than a typical electrolyser.
The company envisages that the technology could be used to make hydrogen for vehicles, developed from electricity and water at home.
The company is funded by Khosla Ventures, founded by Vinod Khosla, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems.
Technical details of the development, procedure and the discovery are available in a whitepaper published at www.grid-shift.com/white_papers.
