Fuel cell outfitter Horizon is now offering a personal hydrogen power plant for use with its MiniPAK and HydroSTIK products. Although it isn’t cheap, the system will (cleanly!) charge all of your small devices using the same water you drink.
The HydroFILL allows users to generate their own hydrogen and recharge the company’s proprietary HydroSTIK miniature hydrogen tanks themselves, rather than having to spring for new ones when expended. Those two components, combined with the HydroPAK charging dock, will allow you to use essentially water to charge a variety of devices and peripherals. No more phone wall chargers, ever!
Still, for the time being, this technology won’t enter your home cheaply, with the HydroFILL tank priced at $US499.99 (plus an optional $US649.99 solar panel if you want to go truly off the grid). But each HydroSTIK packs the juice of 1000 AA batteries, so hardcore chargers should be able to earn that back. Plus, next time someone is over at your place and needs to charge their phone, you can say, “Oh, one sec, let me see if my personal power plant is done generating hydrogen.” [Horizon via designboom]
Steve
July 23, 2010 at 11:34 AM
“each HydroSTIK packs the juice of 1000 AA batteries”
Report PermalinkNo they don’t. Each HydroSTIK has 12Wh capacity.
Common NiMH rechargeable batteries have 3000mAh capacity and let’s say a nominal 1.2V. That gives 3.6Wh.
So each HydroSTICK packs the juice of just over three AA batteries! Wows.
On top of that is the poor efficiency of generating hydrogen and the fuel cell itself and you are actually using a lot more energy than you would be on traditional batteries. The only way for this to be “clean energy” is to be sourcing the power from renewable supplies such as the solar panels mentioned.
DW
July 23, 2010 at 1:06 PM
From their website:
IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION: 1 HYDROSTIK = 10 disposable AA batteries at 1W continuous power consumption. This is because at 1W power consumption, most AA batteries can only last one hour, while the HYDROSTIK has enough energy to last 10 hours. If 1 HYDROSTIK is thenrefillable 100 times, the sameHYDROSTIK can replace 10×100 or 1000 disposable AA batteries over its lifetime E (INCLUDING MULTIPLE REFILLS) – when the required continuous power is 1W.
Report PermalinkSteve
July 23, 2010 at 3:35 PM
Thank you DW. I wish some other people would read the website or at least use a little common sense before posting these things for the sake of Gizmodo’s credibility, at least.
Report PermalinkSteve
July 23, 2010 at 3:46 PM
What’s more, Horizon trying to make this comparison to AA batteries is a bit misleading because the HydroSTIK isn’t used in place of AA batteries. The 22mm(dia) x 80mm(L) tubes are just canisters for the hydrogen to put into the fuel cell device.
Report PermalinkThey could have made them any size they want and claimed any other ridiculous number x AA battery!
They’ve obviously also boosted their number by comparing to the lowest power AA batteries they could find.