In 2022 Trillium worked with the US Dept of Energy to develop AI knowledge tools with the ambition to drive down the production cost of hydrogen to competitive prices as part of the DOE’s ‘Hydrogen Shot’ initiative to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 USD / kilogram in 1 decade (1:1:1). 

Currently H2 costs around $5 per kilogram and takes around 13 litres of water to produce, giving 130 km of range in a car-sized vehicle. For comparison, gasoline (usually measured in litres) is around $1.20 per kg (2023 not including distribution and taxes) which would take your car 15 kilometres, however gasoline takes up far less volume making it still the first choice for aircraft, shipping and heavy equipment. 

Hydrogen’s handling also remains an open problem. H2 molecules are the smallest in the universe and leakage of this highly flammable gas during transfer and degradation of containers over time remain unresolved challenges. Trillium has looked to tackle this by building a removable fuel tank concept where the fuel-tanks are fuelled safely (and refurbished regularly). Rather than fuel your vehicle in the normal way, you ‘plug-in’ your fuel tank like a battery. This fuel pod concept was extended to lunar environments and was a winning concept in NASA’s ‘Watt’s on the Moon’ lunar power infrastructure challenge. 

The concept of a plug-in fuel tank was extended to produce a mixed-power source, zero-emissions vehicle called the NINO designed for large cities, where lithium battery and hydrogen cells work to give rapid acceleration (battery) and range (hydrogen). AI is used to maintain an actively managed dynamic fuel infrastructure that ensures just-in-time refuelling for a vehicle fleet. 

If you are interested in getting involved with the NINO project, we’d love to hear from you.