HyperSolar is the developer of a breakthrough technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and any source of water. The solar cells used to produce the hydrogen were supplied by Midwest Optoelectronics, LLC (MWOE) and were protected with HyperSolar’s proprietary coating.
The Company’s research team used a patent pending solar-cell/membrane assembly that produces hydrogen and oxygen separately on two different sides of the solar cells. The membrane prevents mixing of hydrogen and oxygen (hazardous gaseous mixture) resulting in the extraction of ‘pure hydrogen’, necessary for use in fuel cells that can power cars like the Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity, as well as industrial power equipment. This integrated assembly also prevents recombination of hydrogen and oxygen into water at the catalyst surface, greatly improving the overall hydrogen utilisation efficiency.
Furthermore, the key to this achievement is the use of HyperSolar’s patent pending electroactive coating formulated to protect the solar cells from corrosion during prolonged hydrogen production. The success of this procedure represents another indication of the potential of the company’s technology for economically viable production of hydrogen.
“While the science itself is challenging, we have always looked for simple, economic, and scalable methods for hydrogen production” said Dr. Joun Lee, Chief Technology Officer of HyperSolar. “When fully developed, we believe our technology will be easier to deploy, and will have source-to-use energy cost competitive to the current commercial method which uses natural gas to produce hydrogen.”
Tim Young, CEO of HyperSolar, added that the company’s goal is to lower the cost of producing renewable hydrogen in order to compete with production of hydrogen from natural gas. The company has been very encouraged by the production levels achieved using MWOE-supplied low cost triple-junction cells, the cost of which show great promise for the production of hydrogen without using fossil fuels. The company’s ultimate goal is to complete the development of its nanoparticle technology using earth-abundant materials.
HyperSolar is now building a 1 square foot hydrogen generator prototype using the commercial silicon cells. Long-term stability testing of the commercial triple junction silicon solar cells for hydrogen production is currently in progress.
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