New Spanish prototype to generate and store hydrogen on-site from water for homes and businesses

Atom, a project to generate fuel through hydrogen from water and store it, has won the second edition of the imaginPlanet Challenge, the imagin initiative that supports young people with entrepreneurial ideas to mitigate climate change promoted by CaixaBank.

Atom has been designed by three students from the Instituto Químico Sarrià and Elisava, the University School of Design and Engineering of Barcelona. The project is conceived as a hydrogen fuel generator and storage device to be available at any time of the day.

It uses renewable energy (specifically, in their presentation, the creators propose photovoltaic solar energy) to separate water into its two components, oxygen and hydrogen. The extracted hydrogen is then stored for use when needed as a fuel energy source.

The device aims to use solar energy as a source of electricity and a water circuit to generate hydrogen. “Water will need to be constantly flowing in, but it can be reused,” the group explains. “As of today, we are able to generate hydrogen thanks to our electrolysis prototype. We are just one step away from being able to obtain a functional prototype: in Silicon Valley, we want to develop the hydrogen storage system.”

“Atom is a project designed to adapt to the needs of users, whether in a private home or in a business, because it is a globally scalable idea,” explained the winners.

This year’s imaginPlanet Challenge had more than 1,700 participants. The award is the starting point to start the incubation phase of the project and create a minimum viable product (MVP). Now, the Atom team will have the opportunity to travel during the month of July to Silicon Valley, specifically to the Imagine Creativity Center, to participate in an incubation program for their project. Afterwards, Atom will present its project in a Demo Day session in front of investors, business angels, accelerator platforms and reference organizations of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The project will also be supported by imagin during the acceleration phase to promote it.