Fill your fuel tank up with water? Closer every day...

[Bruce McAuley]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070827174310.htm

Science Daily has this article about the fabrication of an aluminum/gallium "fuel rod" that will react with ordinary water and give off hydrogen to be used in a fuel cell vehicle or even in my old Volkswagen Fox with some slight mods to make it run on hydrogen gas. The breakthrough is in the composition of the aluminum/gallium pieces that break down as the "fuel" gives off hydrogen and forms aluminum oxide(alumina), which can be recycled, as well as the gallium which is not used up in the process. Given the recycleability of these elements, they can be reused indefinitely, not that it's a free energy process, some aluminum is used up but the benefits include pollution free energy and ease of storage of the "fuel", which is water(maybe not in the winter, though...).
VERY interesting article.

Bruce

[NNadir]

1. Over the years when these ideas have been advanced...

...a great case was the boron hydride scheme - there has been very little attention paid to the issue of molecular weights and the existence of the periodic table.

Actually the boron hydride scheme was the best, since boron has a low atomic mass. It never actually worked though.

The hydrogen hypercar idea has sort of withered - and it's a good thing too.

[Bruce McAuley]

2. Was the boron hydride a storage medium for hydrogen?

I think I saw that a while back too, but this is a different matter; actually "catalyzing" the hydrogen from the aluminum taking the oxygen molecules. If I read it correctly, the gallium allows the breakdown of the aluminum/water reaction to continue rather than stop when an oxide coating is produced in the aluminum. I think that's what I'm reading here, but please correct me if I'm not comprehending correctly.

Bruce

[DCKit]

5. Yes. The aluminum/gallium mix (I don't know if it's an actual alloy) allows

the aluminum to be almost completely used up in the reaction due to the resulting structure.

The problem is in recycling the aluminum. The cycle could easily cost far more than fossil fuels since aluminum processing requires an immense supply of electricity. It would take at least as much energy to break the aluminum-oxygen bond as generated by the hydrogen fuel.

[skids]

6. Well, aluminum oxide refining...

...requires a whole lot of heat, and a bit of electricity, to be accurate. That's important because process heat is easier to come by (can be made more efficiently and potential sources of it are often completely wasted) than electricity.

As to what all is required in the way of additional inputs to get it to form up a crystal with gallium, that's an open question...

[DCKit]

13. To my knowledge, aluminum is smelted by running a high amperage current through it.

Which is why the aluminum smelting plants are located in areas with lots of cheap hydro power, Niagra Falls and near the dams on the Columbia river in WA state.

It is different for aluminum oxide?

[skids]

14. I guess you're right...

...I thought more people were doing carbothermic, I guess that hasn't caught on at all.

Here's an interesting paper:

http://www.minerals.csiro.au/sd/CSIRO_Paper_LCA_Al.htm

...do note that even if fully renewable resources were used for energy in the process, there's still generation of CO2, but less of it than gasoline because the Al oxidization yields more energy than carbon oxidization.

[DCKit]

15. Thanks for the link skids

I won't say it's not, or won't become a practical method of fueling vehicles, but EVERYTHING hydrogen requires electricity and, until we have alternatives to CO2, SO2 and HG spewing coal-fired electric power plants, it ain't gonna happen.

Include me with the crowd who believe we need to look at ALL the alternatives: solar, wind, hydro (no dams), geothermic and, especially, conservation.

We ran an education campaign and distributed $1,500 worth of CFLs in my condominium complex over the past six months and our electric bills are around $17K, or 15% lower year-to-date. And that's just a start.

Later!

[zalinda]

3. Great, but then we'll start running out of water! n/t

[greenman3610]

4. this might be important

They are giving dates when actual working hardware may be
available, like next year or so.
That will tell us a lot.

[Bruce McAuley]

7. After thinking on this for overnight I begin to see the hardware...

Those guys in the Science Daily article just figured out the optimum ratio for aluminum and gallium to react with water. Kinda like figuring out the optimum fuel injection/compression ratio for efficient flame propagation with gasoline internal combustion chambers.
The next logical step would be for somebody(any investors here?) to build a combustion chamber to combine the water with aluminum and gallium powders, maybe with a powder injection system, which makes more sense than rods or big pieces.
Depending on the price of gallium, and the fact it's a byproduct of aluminum refining anyway and impure gallium will work fine, then the cost of running my old Volkswagen on hydrogen is really only tied to the cost of impure gallium, and grinding it into a fine powder. I can easily find aluminum around anywhere for little to nothing and grind it up into powder. I envision a combustion chamber of large enough size to pick up the residues of alumina and old paint on the aluminum cans, etc. It would have to be emptied to the recycle bin on a periodic basis, of course, but it could be retrofitted to most all gas powered cars or designed whole into new ones.
The market for scrap aluminum will go up though, as the demand for these units picks up.
I'm going to look into the price of impure gallium, I may want to tinker a bit...!
:)

Bruce

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Aluminum is cheap ONLY because it is >90% recycled by remelting.

If people begin using Al as a fuel, requiring electrolysis to regenerate the metal, the price could go up as much as tenfold. There's really no outstanding advantage to using Al as an energy storage medium.

This Ga/Al alloy has been posted before, and Al-to-H2 generators have been tried out many times, even years ago. They work, but there's no advantage to them. It's little more than an interesting trick.

[Bruce McAuley]

9. Yup, the price would certainly go up for aluminum...

OTOH, an easy build to use resources already commonly available for pollution free and safe transportation, especially with fuel cells.
Certainly the price of aluminum will go up, but the market will drive it to find the level between usability and expendability and recycling.
The beauty is that the principle looks sound today, and the average tinker(almost) could build one. Wonder if that's how the guy who discovered the aluminum/gallium ratio got his eye damage? Occupational hazards of being a tinker, scientific or not..LOL

Bruce

[suziedemocrat]

10. Awesome!!!! K&R Thanks for posting! n/t

[Xithras]

11. Gallium isn't exactly a stable resource.

It's produced in small amounts as a waste product in bauxite and zinc strip mining. It's an expensive mineral simply because production is so spotty. There's some discussion about opening a new gallium mine in Nevada (Cordero?) because of increased gallium demand due to LED production, but if that opens it will be the only gallium mine on the planet.

If they want this to scale, they need to find a resource less rare and valuable than gallium to do it with.

[Bruce McAuley]

12. But it's not used up, only mixed with the alumina sludge in the bottom.

I have no idea what the purity of "impure" gallium as mentioned in the article might be, and it's possible there's not enough to go around which would hamper widespread usability. On the other hand, if the US has the only gallium mine then our cost would be cheaper, especially if it can be separated and re-used each time.
Wonder if this'll start a run on gallium futures?;)

Bruce