HyperSolar, Inc

Company

HyperSolar is developing a breakthrough, low cost technology to make renewable hydrogen using sunlight and any source of water, including seawater and wastewater. Unlike hydrocarbon fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas, where carbon dioxide and other contaminants are released into the atmosphere when used, hydrogen fuel usage produces pure water as the only byproduct. By optimizing the science of water electrolysis at the nano-level, our low cost nanoparticles mimic photosynthesis to efficiently use sunlight to separate hydrogen from water, to produce environmentally friendly renewable hydrogen. Using our low cost method to produce renewable hydrogen, we intend to enable a world of distributed hydrogen production for renewable electricity and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

TECHNOLOGY

Breakthrough Nanotechnology for Making Renewable Hydrogen from Sunlight

Hydrogen (H2) is the most abundant element and cleanest fuel in the universe. Unlike hydrocarbon fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas, where carbon dioxide and other contaminants are released into the atmosphere when used, hydrogen fuel usage produces only pure water (H2O) as the byproduct. Unfortunately, pure hydrogen does not exist naturally on Earth and therefore must be manufactured. Historically, the cost of manufacturing renewable hydrogen as an alternative fuel has been higher than the cost of the energy used to make it. This is the dilemma of the Hydrogen Economy, and one that HyperSolar aims to address.

For over a century, splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis has been well known. Theoretically, this technology can be used to produce an unlimited amount of clean and renewable hydrogen fuel to power a carbon-free world. However, in practice, current commercial electrolysis technologies require (a) expensive electricity, and (b) highly purified water to prevent fouling of system components. We believe these are the major barriers to affordable production of renewable hydrogen.

The Perfect and Sustainable Energy Cycle

As it turns out, Mother Nature has been making hydrogen using sunlight since the beginning of time by splitting water molecules (H2O) into its basic elements - hydrogen and oxygen. This is exactly what plant leaves do every day using photosynthesis. Since the produced hydrogen is immediately consumed inside the plant, we can't simply grow trees to make hydrogen.

If technology can be developed to mimic photosynthesis to split water into hydrogen, then a truly sustainable, low cost, and renewable energy cycle can be created to power the Earth for millenniums. However, cost has been the biggest barrier to realizing this vision.

Water Splitting

In the process of splitting a water molecule, input energy is transferred into the chemical bonds of the resulting hydrogen molecule. So in essence, manufactured hydrogen is simply a carrier or battery-like storage of the input energy. If the input energy is from fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, then dirty carbon fossil fuel energy is simply transferred into hydrogen. If the input energy is renewable such as solar and wind, then new and clean energy is stored in hydrogen.

While the concept of water splitting is very appealing, the following challenges must be addressed for renewable hydrogen to be commercially viable:

• Energy Inefficiency — Since hydrogen is an energy carrier, the most energy it can store is 100% of the input energy. However, conventional systems approach to electrolysis lose so much of the input energy in system components, wires and electrodes that only a fraction the solar electricity actually makes it into the hydrogen molecules. This translates to high production cost and is the fundamental problem with water splitting for hydrogen production. HyperSolar is addressing this problem with its low cost and energy efficient technology.

• Need for Clean Water —Conventional electrolysis requires highly purified clean water to prevent fouling of system components. This prevents current technology from using the large quantities of free water from oceans, rivers, industrial waste and municipal waste as feedstock. HyperSolar's technology is designed to use any natural water or waste water for the unlimited production of renewable hydrogen.

Breakthrough Nanotechnology

Electrolysis water-splitting in its simplest form is the transfer of 'input electrons' in the following chemical reactions.

Cathode (reduction): 2 H2O + 2e- -> H2 + 2 OH- 
Anode (oxidation):     4 OH- -> O2 + 2 H2O + 4 e-

From these equations it is easy to see that if every input electron (e-) is put to work and not lost, then a maximum amount of input electrons (i.e. energy) is transferred and stored in the hydrogen molecules (H2). Additionally, if there were a very high number of cathode and anode reaction areas within a given volume of water, then a very high number of these reactions could happen simultaneously throughout the medium to split every single water molecule into hydrogen wherever electrons are available.

To address this fundamental electron transfer efficiency problem, HyperSolar is developing a novel nanoparticle to maximally ensure that every single electron is put to work in splitting a water molecule. Our nanoparticle has two very important features:

• Self-contained Photoelectrochemical Nanosystem — Our low cost nano-size particle technology is designed to mimic photosynthesis and contains a solar absorber that generates electrons from sunlight, as well as integrated cathode and anode areas to readily split water and transfer those electrons to the molecular bonds of hydrogen. Unlike solar panels or wind turbines that produce a sizeable number of electrons that will be lost before reaching the hydrogen bonds, our nanoparticles are optimized at the nano-level to ensure maximal electron generation and utilization efficiency. Consequently, our nanoparticle technology uses substantially fewer photovoltaic elements, an expensive material, than conventional solar panels to achieve the same system level efficiency. Thereby significantly lowering the system cost of what is essentially an electrolysis process.

• Protective Coating — The biggest problem with submerging photovoltaic elements in water for direct electrolysis is corrosion and short circuiting. To address this problem, we have developed a protective coating that encapsulates key elements of the nanoparticle to allow it to function for a long periods of time in a wide range of water conditions without corrosion. This allows the nanoparticles to be submerged or dissolved into virtually any source of water, such as sea water, runoff water, river water, or waste water, instead of purified distilled water.

By managing the science of electrolysis at the nano-level, we believe that our nanoparticle technology can deliver unmatched cost reductions to enable the commercial production of renewable hydrogen from any sources of water, with sunlight as the only source of energy.

Our nanoparticle technology is a next generation solution. However, during the process of developing this technology, we have achieved a number of discrete technology breakthroughs that have allowed us to develop a commercial solution for today's renewable hydrogen market

SOLUTIONS

HyperSolar H2Generator™

H2Generator – Eliminates the Need for an Electrolyzer

Today's standard system for producing solar generated hydrogen consists of a solar cell array connected to an electrolyzer. An electrolyzer is an electrolysis device that uses electricity to split distilled water into hydrogen and oxygen. Commercially available electrolyzers are very energy intensive and expensive. HyperSolar is developing and intends to market a novel solar hydrogen generator that eliminates the expensive electrolyzer by integrating the electrolysis function directly into a solar cell.

H2Generator Cell

The key to the direct integration of a solar cell and electrolysis is our proprietary, patent-pending polymer coating that performs two very important functions: (1) conductively 'glues' catalyst material directly on to a conventional solar cell, and (2) protects the solar cell from corrosion when submerged in an electrolytic solution. The result is a standalone, self-contained solar hydrogen generator – the H2Generator Cell.

H2Generator Panel

H2Generator Cells will be arranged as a matrix in a flat panel reactor filled with an electrolytic solution.

H2Generator System

H2Generator Panels can be connected together to scale to any size system to meet application specific hydrogen requirements. The H2Generator System will contain a process control unit that automates the liquid chemical processes as well as hydrogen removal from the H2Generator Panels into a temporary storage tank.

Two primary configurations of the H2Generator System are planned, including:
1. Low Pressure – Hydrogen produced by the H2Generator Panels are at atmospheric pressure (1 bar), and will be pumped into a buffer tank for immediate off take by downstream system components.
2. Elevated Pressure – Hydrogen produced by the H2Generator Panels will be processed through a pressure booster, a gas dryer, and a purifier that produces high purity hydrogen at an elevated pressure for direct charging of metal hydride hydrogen storage tanks, or further compression for high pressure gas tanks.

Distributed and Scalable

The HyperSolar H2Generator will be designed to be a linearly scalable and self-contained renewable hydrogen production system. As a result, it is intended to be installed almost anywhere to produce hydrogen fuel for local use. This distributed model of hydrogen production will address one of the greatest challenges of using clean hydrogen fuel on a large scale – the need to transport hydrogen in large quantities.

Each stage of the HyperSolar H2Generator can be scaled independently according to the hydrogen demands and length of storage required for a specific application. A small scale system can be used to produce continuous renewable electricity for a small house, or a large scale system can be used to produce hydrogen to power a community.

The H2Generator technology is currently under development. We are in the process of designing a demonstration unit.