Oct 18 2010
FUKAI Environmental Research Institute, Inc., based in Ueda, Japan, has developed an innovative technology capable of generating hydrogen energy at the world's lowest cost.
This newly developed technology generates hydrogen by adding aluminum or magnesium to what is known as "functional water" in the boiling state. The amount of hydrogen generated is 2.0L per 1g of aluminum or 3.3L per 1g of magnesium.
Thanks to this technology, it is possible to generate the amount of hydrogen required to generate 1kWh of electricity for a cost of merely 18 cents or so, the world's lowest cost.
Conventional hydrogen-generating technologies are based on steam reformation processes, electrolytic processes or photocatalytic processes, each of which have efficiency and/or cost problems. In order to generate hydrogen, it is necessary to dissociate the bonding of hydrogen molecules from other molecules. Given the strength of the bond, conventional processes have encountered major difficulties, since dissociation requires high energy, which results in high costs.
The technology recently developed by FUKAI Environmental Research Institute, Inc. has overcome these problems. By simply adding aluminum to the functional water, the new technology allows FUKAI to generate hydrogen with minimal energy cost.
The reason for the high rate of hydrogen production lies in FUKAI's proprietary functional water: its functional water is in the state ready to generate hydrogen. By reacting with aluminum or magnesium it begins to generate large amounts of hydrogen.