AES-100 Inc., a subsidiary of PowerTap Hydrogen and Aberdeen International, has demonstrated results in hydrogen recovery from natural gas pipelines for the Advanced Electrolyzer System (AES). AES was developed by Pinakin Patel and his team, who have been recipients of significant Federal grant awards for their innovative hydrogen research and development activities.

The hydrogen stored in the pipeline will be about 10% hydrogen content by volume without any significant modifications to existing infrastructure. The technology provides a cost-effective solution for extracting the hydrogen for higher value use in the emerging green transportation industry. The key value proposition offered by this technology is its ability to extract hydrogen at the point of use, thus eliminating the hydrogen transportation costs and associated safety issues.

Across the U.S. and Europe, the ability to store, transport and extract hydrogen from existing natural gas pipeline infrastructure would mean substantial progress towards the hydrogen supply availability needed for clean and green electric vehicles at a fraction of the potential capital expenditure. AES-100’s technology provides a modular, scalable, low-cost solution to extract hydrogen safely and efficiently leveraging existing natural gas infrastructure.

The AES-100 team notes that bench testing over a period of 5,000 hours has shown that the efficient extraction of hydrogen stored in natural gas pipelines is technically viable with AES' systems. AES-100 is now scaling up testing to demonstrate performance expectations similar to pipeline applications globally.