Lowe made a new home in Norristown, Pennsylvania where he continued with his scientific endeavors with hydrogen gas, improving upon and patenting the water gas process by which high volumes of the volatile fuel could be made from passing steam over hot coal. The industry revolutionized home heating and lighting along the eastern seaboard. He held several patents on ice making machines, including his perfected "Compression Ice Machine" which would revolutionize the cold storage industry. He even discovered that gas burning through a platinum mantle produced a bright illumination (as later found in the Coleman lantern).