Inexpensive Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Posted 27 Jul 2006 at 16:12 UTC by steve

The delivery dates for the sort of small, inexpensive fuel cells that interest robot builders always seem to be in the future. Vaporware isn't much help if you want to experiment with fuel cell powered robots now. Fortunately, there are begining to be a few moderately priced fuel cells available for experimenters. Several readers recently sent links to a Shanghai company, Horizon Fuel Cell. They've announced a new product that you can actually buy today. It's a demo system that includes a small electric car with a hydrogen fuel cell, and a hydrogen generation unit with a solar panel to refuel the car. The fuel cell (specs, PDF format) generates 500ma at 0.6 volts. They're asking $40 for the car with fuel cell and $40 for the solar-powered hydrogen generator. I expected we'll see the fuel cells extracted and used in robots before long. It's worth noting that Thames & Kosmos and others have offered similar fuel cell demo systems for some time.