Hydrogen Generator
A hydrogen generator uses a proton exchange membrane (PEM) to produce high purity hydrogen gas from water to create hydrogen on demand. The PEM cell was originally developed by NASA and is extensively used in industrial and laboratory applications that required hydrogen gas generation.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe, although in its gaseous state it does not naturally occur on Earth and must be manufactured. In industry, H2(g) is produced on a large scale by a process called steam reforming, to separate carbon and hydrogen atoms from hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen is used in the laboratory for a variety of lab applications such as Gas Chromatography (GC) as fuel or carrier gas and ICP-MS as a collision gas, in the chemical industry to synthesize ammonia, cyclohexane and methanol and in the food industry for hydrogenation of oils to form fats.
Significant research and development has afforded safer, greener, more efficient and cost-effective means of generating on-demand hydrogen gas for laboratory, manufacturing and industrial applications. Safety has improved so much that Hydrogen gas is now being used in some transport vehicles as a clean ‘pollution-free’ fuel with the gas being generated from water with the by-product of its combustion being water.