Upp Fuel cell USB charger

[mikeselectricstuff]

The Upp USB fuel cell charger - a product about as useful as ubeam (though it does actually work).
 

 

[Fraser]

Thanks for another interesting teardown Mike.

You even included a firework display for our entertainment 😆

As for the product itself........ A solution looking for a problem maybe ?

In a specific emergency role like a life raft maybe but Lithium cells have a 10 year shelf life anyway so I can't really see a role for the unit in normal applications needing emergency power.

Fraser

[SeanB]

For the price you can buy a small 2 stroke generator, a 5l can of 2 stroke marine oil ( more environmentally friendly, and smells better along with being water soluble) and a 205l drum of unleaded fuel, so you can run for a few weeks in the Zombie apocalypse in any case, and have power to run a laptop, lighting, power an electric fence to keep the zombies away......

[BravoV]

For the price you can buy a small 2 stroke generator, a 5l can of 2 stroke marine oil ( more environmentally friendly, and smells better along with being water soluble) and a 205l drum of unleaded fuel, so you can run for a few weeks in the Zombie apocalypse in any case, and have power to run a laptop, lighting, power an electric fence to keep the zombies away......

Just fyi, the walking dead don't afraid of electric fence ... 

[SeanB]

Electric fence does not need to only warn, it can be a lethal "drop you down dead even though you are already a zombie dead" type, which kils anything up to medium animals on contact.

As to the powder, likely a metal hydride, so the fine powder is going to be pyrophoric on contact with air in any case, likely a metal hydride powder.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoricity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-metal_hydride_battery#Electrochemistry


The valve is simple, the large disc is a pressure regulator with a vent to atmosphere on the underside where the spring is, and it closes a metering valve when depressurised, in the bottom under another cover likely a needle and seat valve, while when the 2 push pins are pressed unmetered gas is allowed to flow from the main reservoir into the top, and as the 2 push valves are in series this only will happen if both are depressed. This pushes down on the needle opening it to admit hydrogen flow to the output, which then is regulated by the needle and seat further as it likely has a seal on the fully open position ( the shut off side) and as the pressure on the top side of the piston increases it reduces flow till it will eventually close on another seal at the design pressure. On a major flow ( disconnection) the valve will push back fully on the spring and close, so reducing flow in a fault. The bleed feed will only allow a small pilot flow to start the opening,

The labyrinth on the actual fuel cell is simply to prevent a flashback into the cell membranes, by disrupting the flame path in the long tube with the corners, and to provide a pressure drop as it flows into the fan area so a gradual mixing occurs with air so there is a very small area where the concentration is in the 5-95% range of H2 to air which is the explosive region. Entering is 100% H2, and only in the branching sections is there a gas concentration over 5%, and there the walls will absorb the flame energy of any blast preventing it from travelling further. At the fan outlets it will be under 5% so will not burn.

[firewalker]

Exciting video tear down! You really should change the still frame of the video though. It spoils the surprise! 


 

Alexander.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Forgot to mention in the vid, the hydride is this
http://www.gfe.com/en/product-range/master-alloys/applications/metal-hydride-alloys/

[firewalker]

Does it ignite because it is in a really fine powder state and it oxidizes in contact with air? Or is something else happening?

Alexander.

[mariush]

Linus from Linus Tech Tips made a video about a similar charging device:

[amyk]

You forgot to mention that hydrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen is extremely inefficient, and fuel cells themselves are not so efficient either. Wikipedia gives 40-60%. In comparison charging and discharging of lithium cells (at low currents, due to internal resistances) is nearly 100%.

That hydrogen storage canister is an odd shape - I was expecting something more like a pressure vessel with bulbous ends. In fact it looks like it'd fit 4 18650s, and amusingly enough if they did decide to "fake" it and not have a real fuel cell in there but a dummy that looks like one, and use cartridges containing lithium batteries, it would actually last longer... one 18650 can be >10Wh already, so 4x18650 is >40Wh.

It's really funny that it needs its own lithium battery, since they could've done away with that completely by making the inlet valve a twist-lock mechanism like those used for butane (and then they also wouldn't need magnets to hold it on, which seems really flimsy to me.) The valve could default to the open position, so the moment you attach a hydrogen canister it powers up the fuel cell and the rest of the circuitry, which can then turn it off/open the outlet as needed.

Does it ignite because it is in a really fine powder state and it oxidizes in contact with air? Or is something else happening?

Alexander.

From a comment on the video, it's similar to the material used in lighter flints, so it sparks under friction, and there's also hydrogen absorbed into it.

[mikeselectricstuff]

You forgot to mention that hydrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen is extremely inefficient, and fuel cells themselves are not so efficient either. Wikipedia gives 40-60%. In comparison charging and discharging of lithium cells (at low currents, due to internal resistances) is nearly 100%.

And of course there's the power used by those fans, and the valves.
I'd be interested to see if the Brunton unit has a battery+valve for startup. I suspect an issue is getting a reliable and leak-proof fitting for the tiny hydrogen molecules.
Considering the amount of heat that powder gave off when it was apparently out of H2, I wonder how much energy is used to manufacture it in the first place. Claiming this product is eco-friendly is just ridiculous.

[Melt-O-Tronic]

Due to my Texan genetics, I now want to shoot one of the hydrogen cartridges.   You know, for science. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Due to my Texan genetics, I now want to shoot one of the hydrogen cartridges.   You know, for science. 

There are a few of th Brunton Hydrostik ones on Ebay, though putting in a fire might be more interesting. Not sure if they use the same lively hydride though.

[Paul Moir]

... fire might be more interesting

I think that depends on if he meant it to be a target or a projectile?   

[dexters_lab]

Great video as usual Mike, as you say it's a rather pointless device without a ready supply of hydrogen

the hydrate looks fun if a little short lived!

[Fraser]

As Mike and others have said. This is really strange product in that it cannot compete with current Lithium battery technology on price, size and performance. I like high tech gadgets but this product seems pointless and I wouldn't want one at any price. What were the development team thinking ? and why did no one in the companies that make these realise it was a pointless product. As I said, a classic case of a solution looking for a problem.

Fraser

[mux]

First of all: best video ever. I'm pretty invested in the whole hydrogen fuel cell thing, so I watched with wide open eyes through the entire video. I'm the perfect audience for this video . Also, I've done a giant blog series on why fuel cells don't make sense for vehicles, but at least that's still a 100x better idea than this.

By the way, this fuel cell is an earlier model of one that was very recently in the news: http://www.intelligent-energy.com/news-and-events/company-news/2015/12/15/intelligent-energy-hydrogen-fuel-cells-significantly-extend-drone-flight-time/

This is a platinum nanoparticle dry PEM fuel cell. I.e. those layers in between the electrodes are: the oxidizer, a PEM (proton exchange membrane) and the reducer. The oxidizing and reducing films are gas-permeable and contain about 10-30g/kW of platinum, i.e. given that this unit seems to be 5Wp rated it's going to contain about 100mg of platinum total - a few bucks worth. Water is produced at the oxygen side, but there is so little hydrogen consumed that it's most likely just carried along the gas flow.

This fuel cell is going to be monstrously inefficient. The reaction potential (i.e. the voltage you expect when reacting hydrogen and oxygen) is 1.23V. This looks like 5 cells in series, i.e. at maximum efficiency (which is 83% theoretically) it would produce 6.15V. In the video, at no load it produces about 4.1V, i.e. it's about 55% efficient. At 100mA it drops to 3V, so roughly 40%, then 2A at 2V which is about 27% efficient. At that point just in the fuel cell itself, you're burning about 15W worth of hydrogen to produce 4W of electrical power, the other 11W is dissipated as heat. And then of that 4W, you need about 1W to power the fans and other electronics, and you lose another 10-20%ish in the power converter to 5V. Total system efficiency is going to be in the low double digits for this thing - at full load at least.

These cells have another issue; in order to get maximum power output, enough hydrogen needs to be pumped into the stack to make it all the way over the entire surface area of the PEM. This usually means they scale the fuel cell and pressure regulator such that there is about 10-15% overfeed of hydrogen. In larger scale fuel cell systems, the excess hydrogen is purged from the exhaust and reintroduced into the inlet (usually with a simple centrifugal separator + millipore filter), but in this design it's just exhausted. So you're probably also losing some hydrogen out the exhaust just to get the power spec.

This is not actually a good example of a fuel cell, though. Dry PEM cells are not made for efficiency or performance. The carrier mobility is at least an order of magnitude lower than wet cells, plus you're using it at a lower temperature than you'd ideally want (about 60-70C). The reason for dry cells is obviously one of practicality; you don't want to make some kind of miniaturized water pump system and all the issues that brings with it (hydrogen attacking your bearings, needing to have regulators and purgers to deal with the production and loss of water, etc.) just for a little bit extra efficiency. It'd be even heavier, bigger and more expensive.

So taking all of this into account, I'm extremely unconvinced that Intelligent Energy somehow produced a hydrogen fuel cell that can deliver enough power, do it reliably, cheaply and stay in business for long enough to support their drone fuel cell. The drone fuel cell is based on this exact same technolgy (dry PEM), they haven't invented something significantly different.

[tszaboo]

For the price of that refuel, you get something like 6 AA lithium primary cell, or 15 Ah @ 3,6V . Lasts forever, almost no discharge, and you can make the power bank with a buck converter.
But if you absolutely need something for a flight, just use aluminium air batteries. Maybe even a potato battery makes more sense.

That is, the technology needs more development, because it is promising.

[Synthetase]

Thanks for another great video, Mike.

I really don't understand the attraction of hydrogen as an (oxidation/reduction) energy source at all. I'm all for renewable energy, but hydrogen is so incredibly pointless. You lose so much energy in all the conversion steps between electrical power, to gas back to electricity. As you say, a modern battery pack has better storage capacity per unit mass over the fuel cell, you can charge it anywhere and you can run things from it directly without losing much energy to heat in the power source itself.