Hydrogen on Demand by AlGalco (AlGalCo), a hydrogen energy startup that licenses Purdue University innovations, is one of 10 international finalists in the 16th annual Global Automotive & Mobility Innovation Challenge, or GAMIC, held April 15 during the Society of Automobile Engineers World Congress in Detroit.

AlGalCo CEO Kurt Koehler said the company’s patented technology is scalable, uses a renewable and sustainable feedstock, and generates fewer harmful emissions than gasoline and diesel combustion.

“The technology is simple: Users generate hydrogen by adding any type of water to a solid alloy comprised of over 90% common aluminum,” Koehler said. “Because the spent alloy can be recovered and recycled an indefinite number of times using any form of excess electricity — windmill or solar for example — its capabilities for energy storage are limitless.”

Features and benefits of AlGalCo’s technology include:

• It powers internal combustion engines in full or supplementally, reducing the demand for gasoline and diesel.
• It uses a completely renewable and sustainable hydrogen feedstock.
• It is scalable from portable generator and fuel cell applications to 5.4-liter V-8 gas-powered fleet vehicles and 15-liter over-the-road diesel trucks.
• It approaches cost-competitive status with liquid fuels.
• It eliminates the need for high-pressure storage and transportation of hydrogen.

Koehler said AlGalCo’s technology serves a global marketplace of more than $3 trillion dollars: from land vehicles including over-the-road trucks to oceangoing ships to energy-storing windmill farms.

“The market currently is dominated by multinational oil and gas companies,” Koehler said.

AlGalCo licenses the technology from the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization. It was discovered by Jerry Woodall and developed by AlGalCo. Woodall is a former researcher in Purdue University’s College of Engineering, and now a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis. OTC protected the intellectual property by applying for and receiving two patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

More than 1,500 applicants were invited to compete in GAMIC for a share of over $300,000 in in-kind business acceleration services and cash awards. Other finalists are from Arlington, Virginia; Champaign, Illinois; Delft, Netherlands; Greenville, South Carolina; Houston, Texas; London, United Kingdom; Munich, Germany; Ramat Gan, Israel; and Seoul, South Korea.

AlGalCo | https://algalco.com/

GAMIC | https://gamicevent.org/

Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization | https://purdueinnovates.org/otc/