Personal Fuel Appliance

This report summarizes the progress made in Phase I of Stuart's Personal Fueling Appliance Program. Phase I concluded in March 2002 with the demonstration and deployment of several working models. As proposed in the original project plan, working models of the PFA were built to prove feasibility and technically market the concept. Future follow up phases of the project, Phase II and III, will take the concept through prototyping development to pre-production of commercially viable product. The Phase I program successfully demonstrate a home fueling system capable of running on a household circuit, 220V/40 Amp/single phase or equivalent. Connected to a source of ''drinking water'' the system has all the functions necessary to convert water and electricity to high-pressure hydrogen fuel. Pressures of up to 3600 psig were achieved on demonstration systems and higher pressures up to 5000 psig were achieved in the lab. The development program spanned building 3 series of prototypes: White Box (1 unit built 1998), PFA Series 100 (4 units built 1999-2000), and Series 200 (6 units built 2000-02). Advanced in controls and process learned in the PFA program have been embodied in Stuart's larger fuel appliances