MacGregorSailors.com

Anyone have any experience or comments on the EFOY fuel cell? http://www.efoy.ca/en/marine-benefits.html

Seems to have a lot of benefits for our application

Defender is selling those units, >$4000.00 for a 65W fuel cell (EFOY 1600).
Clearly out of my leage

Obelix

Also look into the cost of fuel ie methanol ,has to be very pure and as such only puchased from limited outlets.For us in Australia where theres no production of highly refined methanol you would be at the mercy of the manufacturer.Use of fuel with impurities leads to unit failure

Still, this product represents the/our future! I bet you could run it on white gas (Coleman).
I'd certainly buy into it if the price came down tenfold (400 bucks); which, it will soon enough.

I looked at these when a number of them came up for sale on ebay about 2 years ago .Pure methanol is the only fuel as they work on chemical reaction.Was somewhat concerned by fuel cost at the time and the selling of units far below thier advertised recommended retail price made me wonder if the technology still had some developing left to do

The fuel cell idea is fantastic because of its simplicity, just strip the hydrogen from water molecules and walla you have fuel. But that's to easy and there isn't enough profit in that business model; why just sell a fuel cell when you can sell the "special fuel" to go along with it.

Its not black magic, we all leaned how to separate hydrogen from water in high school science class by applying electric current to water. The rest of the technology is off the shelf.

I was pumped about fuel cells when they talked about bringing them to market, but once they dumped the idea of using water for the source of fuel I refused to buy into their model.

I truly hope that fuel cell company is successful because they are taking all the risk and thus should reap the reward.

As for me, I will stick with wind and solar.

That's my two cents worth

God > Family > Country

MAC Out

Still the biggest issue with current fuel cell technology (excluding price) is longevity, the electrodes and catalyst only last about 5000 hours or 200 days of continuous use before the cell has to be replaced (they claim 10 years use at 500 hours a year) maybe for weekend users but for liveaboards or cruisers? Military style ones the size of shipping containers or the Panasonic domestic ones the size of a fridge just don't work for a boat and they also run on hydrogen .

I hope things keep developing but I don't think they are ready as a consumer product just yet as for infrequent use a small generator makes far more sense. Also why would you buy the "pure methanol" when you can get aviation or racing methanol which is 99.99% pure at half or less the price of their methanol. And again it is fuel so if they become popular the fuel is going to go up in price. Sorry for a boat Solar, Wind and a Tow generator will always win out for cost v longevity at this point in time.

hmmmmmmkayyy
a 1000 watt honda is 800 bucks. For 2000 worth of the same fuel the yachts engine uses, you can run it for ahhh, someone help me with the math. But a long time.

Ix

Doesn't methanol come from decomposing waste products, i.e. landfills and manure lagoons? Perhaps with a little ingenuity and some plumbing the holding tank for the head could be used as a fuel source.

Noooo that would be too easy!!

Ix

Its got to be said that the sound of a generator whether sailing or camping is sh~t

Doesn't methanol come from decomposing waste products, i.e. landfills and manure lagoons?

That would be methane.

Methanol is generally made by catalysing carbon monoxide with hydrogen, though methane can also be catalysed into methanol and gasification of coal is another method.

So a ten liter fuel cartridge for these costs $60 and provides 11.2 kwh of power. That's 2.6 gallons of methanol, and a cost of almost $5/kwh. It does this at a rate of 65 watts.

A gas generator provides 10 kwh per gallon of gas for a cost of $3/gallon, for a cost of $0.30 /kwh, at a rate of a few kilowatts.

That's such an enormous cost difference that its simply not worth considering.

I wonder if you can "hack" the fuel cells, in other words refill them yourself with off the shelf methanol ? The entire cut the need to dock to recharge is sort of silly if its now search the world for a replacement canister.

Captain mastreb is right. The cost is so much higher than the gas we all have right there under our butts in the aft cockpit that it makes no sense. For that kind of money I would rather have a hydrogen generator – it would be ten times more efficient than the methanol and hydrogen is easier to make at home.

Fuel cell generators are certainly a step in the right direction but I think this is one we should pass on until the prices is more reasonable.