CONSULTING SERVICES: Hydrogen systems design and safety consulting

HYDROGEN IS THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE

Vision Statement: U.S. Department of Energy, Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel
"Hydrogen will join electricity in the 21st Century as the primary energy carriers in the nation's sustainable energy future. Both energy carriers will ultimately come from renewable energy sources, although fossil fuels will provide a long-term transitional resource. Future hydrogen suppliers will deliver a significant portion of America's energy for transportation and other applications. For these applications, hydrogen offers a non-polluting, inexhaustible, efficient and potentially cost-effective energy system derived entirely from domestic energy resources."

If you are ready to begin building the hydrogen energy system now, HCI wants to help you succeed.

Franklin E. Lynch, President of Hydrogen Components, Inc. (HCI), has been involved in hydrogen energy system research, development and manufacturing for 37 years. While an undergraduate at UCLA in 1970, he organized and led a team of students in the areas of metal hydride and hydrogen-fueled engine development. This latter work culminated in the team's award-winning entry in the 1972 Urban Vehicle Design Competition. He received his B.S. in Engineering in 1971 and stayed an additional year in graduate studies.

From 1972 to 1974, Mr. Lynch was VP of Billings Energy Corp. Then he joined the University of Denver's metal hydride development team, led by Dr. Charles Lundin. Lundin and Lynch developed additives and heat treatment for hydride alloys to alter their pressure-temperature characteristics, hysteresis, etc. They also pioneered safety testing of metal hydrides and the use of hydrides to store hydrogen for motor vehicles.

Mr. Lynch has been a hands-on manager of HCI since 1978. Since then HCI has studied, developed, demonstrated and manufactured many hydrogen-based systems involving high-pressure gas, cryogenics and metal hydrides. HCI manufactures metal hydride hydrogen containers under the trademark “SOLID-H™ ”. Since the mid-1990s, HCI has added hydrogen vehicle refueling station design, fabrication and installation to its list of products and services. HCI's Hydrogen Transfer System has matured through 2 projects; 1 at Chicago Transit Authority, 1 at Ford Motor Company. Mr. Lynch served Japan's WENET program 1999-2003 as a safety consultant on hydrogen vehicle refueling station design, construction and software. He served Ford Motor Co. as a hydrogen safety planning, analysis and testing consultant in 2002-2003. Other recent experimental safety work includes (2002-2003) for United Technologies and 2005 for Angstrom Power.

Mr. Lynch is the co-inventor of Hythane®(a Registered Trademark of Eden Energy) mixtures of hydrogen in natural gas. HCI has built many Hythane stations since 1991 in the Denver area and Erie, PA. The most recent of these (2005) was for Hythane Co. in Littleton, CO.

Mr. Lynch has been a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for 35 years. He has served SAE as a national lecturer on hydrogen powered mining vehicles and as an invited TOPTEC speaker on Hydrogen and Hythane. Mr. Lynch has served as a plenary lecturer on hydrogen storage for the International Assn. of Hydrogen Energy and the National Engineering Development Organization (Japan). He has served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Hydrogen Association. He has also served on the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel (HTAP). As part of the HTAP activity, he chaired a committee on surface vehicles. Mr. Lynch also participated in the South Coast Air Quality Management District Hydrogen Task Force in the early 1990s. He is a founding member of the US TAG for International Standards Organization, Technical Committee #197 on Hydrogen. Mr. Lynch is a board member of Hydrogen 2000, a non-profit organization whose projects include videos on hydrogen and renewable energy. He presently serves the Technical Committee of National Fire Protection Association, Code 52, Vehicular Fuel Systems Code, as a member of the Task Group on blends of hydrogen in natural gas.

Mr. Lynch has published dozens of technical papers. Nearly all of them relate to hydrogen energy systems. A good example is “Hydrogen Fuel for Underground Mining Machinery” SAE Paper 840233, March 1984. This paper won SAE's Colwell Award.