By James T. Hammond
SCBIZ Daily Staff

COLUMBIA -- Trulite Inc. will establish the pilot manufacturing site for its Hydrocell fuel cell cartridges in the Business Accelerator of Midlands Technical College’s Enterprise Campus in Northeast Richland County, it announced last week.

The cartridges, which contain dry, powdered sodium borohydride as fuel to generate hydrogen for the fuel cell generator, are about the size of a soft drink bottle. Trulite’s KH4 generators use two of the cartridges.

“You just add water,” said Ron Seftick, Trulite’s president and the chief marketing executive for the company.

When water combines with the chemical in the cartridges, hydrogen is produced to power the generator. The generator can produce enough electricity to power three laptop computers, a cell phone and a PDA at once. The 250-watt unit has the capacity of about 35 D-cell batteries, said Ken Pearson, Trulite’s chief operating officer.

Bill Mahoney, chief executive officer of the South Carolina Research Authority, believes the Trulite 250-watt generator will have great appeal to the military.

“It costs $600 to deliver a gallon of gasoline to the front lines,” Mahoney said, adding that the fuel cell units bring added advantages to a military setting:

They are quiet, unlike internal combustion engines used to generate electricity.

They do not generate any life-threatening gases or fumes like traditional generators do, which means the fuel cell units can be used indoors or in a confined space where gasoline fumes or exhausts might suffocate the troops.

The easily portable generator, with two of the fuel canisters installed, is about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage.

The pilot manufacturing facility at the Midlands Tech campus will set the stage for a “high-rate manufacturing facility in Columbia,” Pearson said.

Trulite will receive up to $750,000 in assistance to build the new manufacturing facility. Some $350,000 will be provided by the South Carolina Research Authority’s SC Launch! Program, which provides assistance to high-tech startup companies that locate in South Carolina.

The Trulite officials expect to begin work on the manufacturing facility within 60 days.

In addition to SCRA and Midlands Tech, the recruitment and assistance to Trulite has been aided by EngenuitySC, the city of Columbia, the University of South Carolina, and the S.C. Department of Commerce.

Trulite officials selected South Carolina for its East Coast manufacturing site after attending the National Hydrogen Association’s Military Uses of Hydrogen Forum in Columbia last year.

Trulite officials said they also plan to form a research partnership with the University of South Carolina with the aim of developing additional Trulite commercial products.

“Trulite will add to our critical mass of scientific talent an array of strong partnerships working to make South Carolina a center of excellence in hydrogen and fuel cell technology,” said USC President Harris Pastides.

Trulite officials said they already are developing a larger generator with output of one to two kilowatts of electric power.

The company aims to market the KH4 generator to telecommunications, electronics, construction, security, remote monitoring, recreation and other markets.

Last April, the USC Columbia Fuel Cell Collaborative announced the Greater Columbia Fuel Cell Challenge Phase II awards, which aimed to lure hydrogen and fuel cell companies to locate in the Midlands. Four proposals were selected to receive combined grants of more than $1 million. They were: Trulite Inc., Boroscience International, Inc., Midlands Technical College, and Millennium Cell/Gecko Energy Technologies.

The award was to be used to buy 12 of Trulite’s KH4 portable fuel cell generators and 500 Hydrocells, as well as Trulite’s dry chemical hydride fuel cartridges for the power units. The 12 KH4 generators were to be used by Columbia’s emergency responders, the USC College of Engineering and local startup fuel cell companies.