Technology for the future

At the turn of the 20th Century, Thomas Edison invented a battery with the unusual quirk of producing hydrogen… A century later Prof. Dr. Fokko Mulder and his research group at Delft University of Technology invented a solution to harness the produced hydrogen and build a super-efficient integrated battery and electrolyser, named a battolyser.

The battolyser can store and supply electricity as a battery and when the battery is fully charged it automatically starts splitting water from the electrolyte into hydrogen and oxygen as an electrolyser with an outstanding system efficiency of up to 90%. The system is extremely flexible and robust and thus can arbitrage between power and hydrogen prices, so for example the battery function can monetize daily power imbalances whilst the produced hydrogen can monetize seasonal power imbalances and supply industries that cannot be electrified. The battolyser electrodes are nickel-iron that are already available since Edison’s times that are combined with alkaline electrolysis technologies that are commercially available today with a proven track record of 20-30 years lifetime. The integration of these technologies improves performance, lowers cost and increases uptime.