Solar Hydrogen Calculations

• 45 gallons per day from a commercial high purity generator - see High Purity Hydrogen Generator.
• 1 mole of h2 is 2 grams, and 22.4l. We 45 gallons (160 liters) is 8 moles, or 16 grams of hydrogen.
• General energy equivalence is 1 kg of hydrogen equals 1 gallon of gasoline
• So for example, you can run your [[Honda EU1000] for 16/250 hours or about 4 minutes of run time. Not too bad. If we have an even smaller engine, we could potentially get 16 minutes of run time at a minumum practical storage value for night time storage. The Seed Eco-Home uses 300W of night time backup power.
• We would need more hydrogen storage to be able to do this. With an investement of $3000, we can get the hydrogen production up to 1 hour of storage for practical Seed Eco-Home operation.
• High Purity Hydrogen Geneator indicated $2k for 3000 ml/min. This would get us 1.5 hours of useful power. If we spend $4k, that would be 3 hours of useful power.
• Far cry from alkaline hydrogen generators, which may be the way to go initially, with the proper purification and drying infrastructure. Definetely worth it, based on its $1k electrolyzer cost as in the Solar Hydrogen Chronicles. LE Spicer's system reportedly produces 1/2 cubic foot of gas per hour per cell, and cells are $100 each. 10 cells thus produce 140 liters per hour. Also from Walt Pyle - 6 hours to get one cubic meter with 1000W of solar. Thus the figures agree. 1000 l is about 100 grams of hydrogen, which is respectable for night time power - producing about 1.5 hours of night time power (if needed)
• Bottom line is designing a system for superefficiency, so that a trickle of power is sufficient.
• For the ecological aspects, growing biomass or producing methan is a great idea, too. The safest, easiest route is charcoal when complexity is considered and one is inclined to look under the hood.
• These are all prototype systems, so that an alkaline electrolyzer system could be completely practical and doable with today's technology. It's a worthwhile design challenge.
• If ecology is considered AND efficiency is considered, it appears that saturated water may be the winner. We still use similar technology - propane tanks.