Racing around the track in small-size H2 cars might look like fun, but it has a serious purpose. An event like this is designed to impart crucial engineering know-how, prompt design ideas, solve technical issues, encourage improvisation and, most of all, promote deep immersion in a new technology. This and much more is being offered at competing events such as the Shell Eco-marathon and the Formula Student.
Frank Duhlies, the formerly managing director of Mossau Energy based in Aurich, Germany, has already had hands-on experience with small solar-hydrogen units based on his involvement in the design of Blue Hamster, a blue-color hydrogen generator Mossau unveiled at Hannover Messe in 2013 (see July 2013 issue of HZwei). A demonstration system with a 100-kilowatt solar unit, a 41-kilowatt-hour battery, a 2.3-kilowatt electrolyzer, a 20-cubic-meter H2 pressure vessel and a 2.5-kilowatt fuel cell went online in 2014 at Klar Folien in Dernbach. Mossau, however, had to close down in late 2015