ITM Power Plc (ITMPF)

[Gerry321]

350 bar hydrogen from ITM without a compressor?

Funny how you look at something several times and dont pick up the obvious..........
If you go to the ITM website at and click "News Coverage" you get a list of Videos showing the launch of the 10Kw Home Refueller Unit HRU

this includses footage of the Ford Focus hydrogen car seemingly being refuelled from a green box
Theres something very puzzling about that part of the clip

Aand heres why
To fill a car`s fuel tank with H2 you transfer the gas from a storage tank
All the regular ITM holders know that an HRU is a device for converting water into hydrogen
......its never been claimed to be a storage tank
And if the HRU was simply an electrolyser
the maximum rate at which it can make H2 is approx 250gms/hr
ie 4hrs to make and transfer 1kg in real time........rather a long time to wait for a top up
So for sure
The Green Box in the video is not the hydrogen equivalent of a petrol pump

Which begs the question
Why did ITM demo the Green Box as if it was the H2 equivalent of a petrol pump ?
Which begs another question ...........whats inside the Green Box ?

If its just a 10Kw 75 bar electrolyser like we have been lead to believe then the Ford Focus Driver requiring 1kg of H2 for his 25mls top up will indeed have to wait for 4 hrs to electrolyse and transfer 1kg from the green box into the car
This is clearly nonsense
The only way in which this video is credible is if the green box is simply a hydrogen storage tank inside a box which also contains the pump and electronics
And
If this is the case
it is reasonable to assume that the only way ITM can both claim that the green box can fill a car and also be an electrolyser
is
If the electrolyser is INSIDE the storage tank and made the hydrogen at some earlier point in time
suggesting
If this green box is indeed about the size of a US fridge
The space available for the storage tank is enough to hold 4 cylinders
100cm long x 20 cm diameter........ie a volume comparable with the volume of 1 kg of H2 at 75 bar
Or
perhaps
4.6 kg of H2 at 350 bar
which wouldnt make technical sense since
The 4 electrolysers inside the 4 storage tanks would have to make H2 at 75 bar and transfer it ti another external tank to be compressed to 350 bar and then returned to the 4 storage tanks at 350bar
Hence
The only sensible technical solution is that the Green Box contains 4 tanks with an internal electrolyser capable of making H2 at 350 bar
This would retain the credibilty of both
The BBC video( ie Green Box is a storage tank)
and
ITMs long held description of the HRU as an electrolyser

Hmm......