back to article How about printing your electricity?

Danish boffins have hacked – comprehensively hacked, since the work involves extensive case-modding – an HP inkjet, turning it into a device that can print fuel cells. The work was carried out at the Danish Technical University's Energy Conversion program, and creates solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) without needing expensive …

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  1. Stoneshop
    Boffin

    Yttrium and zirconium

    A bargain compared to Unicorn pee printer ink

    1. Simon Harris

      Re: Yttrium and zirconium

      Could have used an Epson printer...

      except the world's supply of yttrium and zirconium would be wasted on head cleaning cycles!

  2. frank ly

    "... the inkjet printer's annoying habit of skipping pixels ..."

    Is that true for all inkjet printers, or just this one?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This will only last..

    .. until HP manages to chip those cartridges, after which the price will triple.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: This will only last..

      Yeah, but --- even the chipped ones don't always get recognised.

  4. Chairo
    Joke

    But, but

    How can HP ever make money from that printer, given they replaced the ink cartridges?

    They should be ashamed of denying HP their loot rightful income.

  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Impressive.

    <2 micron layer thickness in ceramics is pretty good.

    SOFC's run at (fairly) high temperatures and so can "crack" longer chain molecules to Hydrogen, making them multi fuel.

    Handy given what a b**ger H2 is to generate and store.

    Thumbs up for this clever bit of re-purposing.

    I wonder. Is pixel skipping down to the budget print controller? Could a few electronic tweaks fix it?

  6. Nifty Silver badge

    It was all working perfectly until...

    An auto firmware update stopped their non-HP cartridges from working

    1. Callam McMillan

      Re: It was all working perfectly until...

      At least they're not using a Lexmark. Take the bloody paper... No, not two sheets... Why have you jammed you useless POS!!! *Printer leaves window at high speed*

      1. Steven Raith

        Re: It was all working perfectly until...

        Just fan your paper.....oh, it's a Lexmark.

        I'm so very sorry.

      2. tony2heads

        @Callam McMillan

        a case for implementing 'lp0 on fire'

  7. saundby

    Wrong HP 1000?

    Dang, I was hoping the story involved an HP 1000 =computer=. Or at least a 21MX of some sort. ;)

    http://hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=108

  8. Tim Worstal

    Bring it on!

    I've long argued that SOFCs are going to become blindingly cheap. Admittedly, I'm very biased on this. The very finest material to use is scandia/yttria stabilised zirconia (9 mole % Sc, 2 mole % Y for those keeping score at home) and, as regular readers around here will know, I supply scandium to peeps.

    And if you can just print them out on ink jets then there's really not going to be anything very expensive about them. And given these thicknesses they're achieving the materials cost will be pretty low too.

    And here's the thing about making these cells cheap. If you can do the same with solar cells (I would be willing to wager a price in a decade of 10 to 20 cents a W, as opposed to 80 cents to a $ now) then you've got the building blocks of a hydrogen economy. Sure, it's wasteful to electrolyse water with the solar power, then run it back through the cell. But if it's all cheap enough then that doesn't matter: you've now transformed unreliably available renewables into on demand power.

    Which does rather solve that climate change problem, doesn't it?

    1. kmac499

      Re: Bring it on!

      Sure does, Once the kit gets cheap, really cheap then energy efficiency (within stupid limits) doesn't really matter that much.

      That's why I'm hanging back from nailing the current PV panels onto my roof I'm waiting for the the Infrared ones

      1. Gavin Park Weir

        Re: Bring it on!

        I have been puzzling over this exact problem for some time. Certainly if becomes really cheap it will make for some interesting changes: Every home becomes its own power source and able to refill the car with H? Goodbye southern electric and not before time.

      2. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: Bring it on!

        I'm hanging back from nailing the current PV panels onto my roof I'm waiting for the the Infrared ones

        Didn't we evolve to see in what we now call the "visible light spectrum" because that's where the most energy is available to see with? So in other words there isn't as much solar energy available outside that spectrum? What am I missing with you wanting IR panels?

  9. Tim Worstal

    Hmm

    Doing some (probably wrong) envelope back of stuff I get to around $6 for the materials cost of a 25 W SOFC with this method. And that's using scandium as well.

    Which is really pretty cheap.....

  10. Tim Worstal

    umm, no

    dropped a zero. 60 cents in materials costs. We want 2 kW at any one time for the average household: call it 5 for peak?

    I must have something wrong here, it can't be a $120 materials cost for a household sized SOFC.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: umm, no

      You forgot to add legal costs for defending the patent from trolls. That adds 2000% at least.

      1. Fatman

        Re: umm, no

        You forgot to add legal costs for defending the patent from trolls.

        Yep, there is this obscure patent filing from crApple covering the tech.

        Open up your wallet!!!!

        1. Tim Bates

          Re: umm, no

          "Yep, there is this obscure patent filing from crApple covering the tech."

          No, no... They're printing onto paper with square, pointy corners. Apple only patented the rounded corner rectangle.

          Of course there is still the whole printing angle they could come back on. They did use an HP Deskjet, and we all know the last of the Stylewriters were HP Deskjets. Given the US patent system, that's a valid patent right there. Just some paperwork to fill in and Apple will be the proud owner of a patent on inkjet printing.

      2. Gray
        Devil

        Re: umm, no

        Also include the ancillary costs of compliance for US here in everyone-is-free-land: zoning and home-owner association permit fees for rooftop installations; home-inspection fees for same; public utility metering fees; annual fire & safety inspection fees for rooftop/interface/storage systems; quarterly tax filings for metered income-equivalency earnings; city/county/state impact fees (infrastructure amelioration and in-lieu of tax payments legislation); and so on.

        Don't be trying to evade $$ owing to the established regulatory scheme of things.

        1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

          Re: umm, no

          "Also include the ancillary costs of compliance for US here in everyone-is-free-land..."

          Tell me about it. I noticed our township has a bucketload of ordinances on solar panels alone.

          Thankfully, we have no homeowner association to contend with. We refused to buy any home where the literal tyranny of a homeowner association exists.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I want to print my own pizzas.

    1. Trygve Henriksen

      Actually, I think some manufacturers of frozen pizzas have found a way to do this already as their product tastes like cardboard...

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