Air Products Builds SmartFuel Station at Honda - Analyst Blog

Industrial gas giant, Air Products & Chemicals Inc. APD, has built a new hydrogen fueling station – a SmartFuel branded station – in Torrance, Calif. It is installed and operational for filling vehicles with hydrogen at Honda Motor Co., Ltd.'s HMC Research & Development headquarters.

The new SmartFuel branded station took around seven months to complete, right from signing the contract, construction work, final commissioning with hydrogen to starting operations at the station. The new station is built with advanced patented technologies fueled by Air Products and it acts as a model of how a hydrogen fueling station can be constructed safely and made operational within a limited time frame.

The new station which is modeled after Air Products' "compressionless hydrogen fueling station", provides hydrogen fueling at 700 bar (10,000 psi) and includes Air Products' patented technology to practice the SAE J2601 fueling protocol. The company holds an entire portfolio of global patents, has several SmartFuel fueling station concepts including modular and expandable technology and some pending patents, related to the compressionless advancement.

Hydrogen is a perfect fuel as it is non-toxic, available abundantly, can be produced from renewable resources and is not a greenhouse gas. Significant advances have been made to use hydrogen as an alternative fuel for transportation and power generation that can simultaneously reduce a country's dependence on foreign oil and remarkably reduce greenhouse gases.

Air Products has over 50 years of hydrogen experience and holds an extensive patent portfolio in hydrogen dispensing technology. Usage of this technology is increasing year over year with over 800,000 hydrogen fills per year. It is also involved with more than 150 hydrogen fueling projects in the U.S. and 20 other countries across the globe. Air Products' trend-setting technologies have fueled cars, trucks, vans, buses, scooters, forklifts, locomotives, planes, cell towers, material handling equipment and even submarines.

Air Products currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Other companies in the chemical industry worth considering include Northern Technologies International Corp. NTIC and The Dow Chemical Company DOW. While Northern Technologies holds a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Dow carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).