The Brunton Hydrogen Reactor with a core and the hydrolyser station
A group of outdoor experts has chosen an innovative hydrogen-powered charging device for its annual award.
The Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild’s Derryck Draper award went to the Brunton Hydrogen Reactor, which uses water to produce hydrogen to power a unit from which electronic gadgets can be charged in the outdoors.
The award is named after one of the guild’s founders and former chairman who died in 2004.
The guild’s panel of four judges chose the Hydrogen Reactor for the award, which was announced at the group’s annual meeting yesterday.
Judges were Chris Townsend, gear editor of The Great Outdoors Magazine; Graham Thompson, gear editor of Trail magazine; Judy Armstrong, gear expert on The Great Outdoors magazine, and Tom Hutton, gear expert on Lakeland Walker magazine.
The Reactor is fuelled by the screw-in core, a little larger than an AA battery, which contains the equivalent 10 litres of solid-state hydrogen gas.
That itself is recharged in a Hydrolyser, which extracts the hydrogen from a small tank of water, emitting only water vapour and a fizz.
Panel judge Graham Thompson said: “The real benefit of the Hydrogen Reactor technology is for longer backcountry trips.
“Then, the costs become effective, as other battery cells are good for shorter times away.
“For travellers who are not going to go near electric sockets for weeks on end and cannot rely on solar power due to the weather, the hydrogen cell is the way to go in my view.
“Everyone will copy it in a few years, I suspect.”
Ralph White, chief executive of UK distributors Rosker, said: “It is a privilege to know that the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild has selected the Brunton Hydrogen Reactor for this year’s Derryck Draper award.
“Having outdoor writers objectively value the qualities and usefulness of our products is important since their readers will often turn to them for advice and guidance.
“So, to have them, as a whole group, vote for the Brunton Hydrogen Reactor is wonderful.”
The award, which took the form of a painting of Blencathra by OWPG member and landscape artist David Bellamy, was accepted by Ross Bainbridge, on behalf of Rosker.
Previous winners of the award have included the BioLite CampStove, NeoShell Fabric by Polartec, the Laser Photon tent by Terra Nova and the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir mattress by Cascade Designs.
The Brunton Hydrogen Reactor was also judged overall winner in the Novel Awards at the Outdoor Trade Show in September.
The Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild also announced its awards for excellence at its Church Stretton meeting.
Vivienne Crow’s Walks to Waterfalls, published by Northern Eye, won the guidebook category, with Terry Marsh’s Great Mountain Days in the Pennines, published by Cicerone, picking up the outdoor book prize.
Kitting Up With a Conscience by John Manning, published in Walk magazine, won the award for best technical feature while Walk of Art by Judy Armstrong, published in France magazine, picked up the prize for the top outdoor travel feature.
Chris Howes’s Crystal Caves of South France portfolio won the photography award, and the digital media prize went to Alf Alderson, for Church of the Open Sky.
