A New Way To Produce Hydrogen 204
Iddo Genuth writes "Scientists at Pennsylvania State University and Virginia Commonwealth University are producing hydrogen by exposing clusters of aluminum atoms to water. Rather than relying on the electronic properties of the aluminum, this new process depends on the geometric distribution of atoms within the clusters. It requires the presence of 'Lewis acids' and 'Lewis bases' in those atoms (water can act as either). Unlike most hydrogen production processes, this method can be used at room temperature and doesn't require the application of heat or electricity to work. The researchers experimented with a variety of different aluminum cluster patterns, discovering three that result in hydrogen production."
Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problems with this (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAC but the article sounds like it's another way of oxidising Aluminium. I can see this being very impractical for a few reasons. Main one it's incredibly hard to store aluminium in a way where it won't oxidise, especially as this would work would need it to be powdered and without that layer of oxidised aluminium on the top, it's incredibly reactive and dangerous.
You're then left with a large pile of Oxidised aluminium which I don't believe has any use apart from the production of 'pure' aluminium (which requires lots of electricity). Ultimately I can't see this offering much benefit over existing methods of hydrogen production
Re:Still not..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty pointless - separating the aluminum from the oxygen will require the same amount of energy you got from the hydrogen.
Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds more like they've basically just found something vaguely useful to do with waste aluminum.
Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:1, Insightful)
What, other than recycle it?
Grant Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Smells like someone's grant is about to run out. Solution: the press-release, stir things up a little, generate some news and attention, it's a common way to generate hype, interest, etc. As has been pointed out, they won't solve the fact that the aluminum in the process is not merely catalytic, but used up by the process. Little thing called oxidation. If only they had a bit MORE MONEY to solve the problem... for the next 30 years or so, put their kids through college, yada, yada ;P
If you ever found a way to separate water into its constituent molecules at room temperature, no energy input needed, no chemical input needed, etc., you'd have just solved the world's energy problems for all time.
Aw jeez, hydrogen AGAIN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, three times the energy density of gasoline by mass but only one third the energy density by volume (and that's for liquid hydrogen).
Yes, fuel cells can be three times as efficient as burning gasoline, but it takes 2.5 times as much energy to make a hydrogen fuel cell than you'll ever get out of it over its lifetime. Where's that energy coming from? Milking invisible pink unicorns?
Ford has dropped development of hydrogen cars in favour of going straight to all electric.
Hydrogen is over before it even begun. It's less efficient than electric by any measure, and if you're betting on a big breakthrough (this isn't it) then the smart money is on capacitors (powered by wind, wave, solar, geothermal), not some magic leap forward in hydrogen production or fuel cell construction. At this point, it really is an academic proposition.
the only possible application? (Score:4, Insightful)
To use water and aluminium as energy storage. We already have a pretty good global aluminium infrastructure.
If water could be combined with aluminium to produce hydrogen on demand, then you refuel by replacement of the aluminium oxide waste with fresh aluminium and refilling the water tank.
Then you still need a better method to convert aluminium oxide to aluminium - but here's the great thing about this research. Better ways to convert in one direction usually lead to better ways to go the other way too (eg, microdots convert electricity to light better, but also the other way round too).
Re:Still not..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, it doesn't say "A New Way To Produce Hydrogen For Free!"
I mean, I don't understand the reactions to this article. They just found out aluminum can be attacked by water via a sequence of Lewis acid-base reactions that result in a standard substitution reaction, depending on the geometry of the aluminum cluster.
It's a very interesting form of corrosion and people are acting like this is supposed to be a perpetual motion machine.
Re:Still not..... (Score:2, Insightful)
... Still not economically viable, but hopefully continued research in hydrogen will replace the hype about plant based ethanol, which is not really a solution (because we need to eat corn, etc).
Despite what some farmers want you to think, there ate plenty of ways to make biofuel other than corn. Soy, rapeseed, jatropha, mahua, mustard, flax, sunflower, palm oil, hemp, field pennycress, pongamia pinnata and algae are some examples. In Brazil we use sugar cane since 1978 with great success, and flex fuel engines now have 50% market share of the vehicle fleet (excluding diesel-powered engines).
Re:Aw jeez, hydrogen AGAIN? (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's that energy coming from? Milking invisible pink unicorns?
The unicorns aren't pink, they're blue [doe.gov], and unfortunately they're rather large.
Seriously, this (Al powder) isn't an energy generation solution, it's an energy distribution solution. Most (populated) areas have both water and oxygen in the air, so if you can get the water to this powder and get hydrogen back... that could be very interesting.
If you look at the overall efficiency of the fossilized oil cycle, starting with solar input and running through geologic time as a major part of the refining process toward becoming a portable fuel, recycling oxidized aluminum is pretty damn attractive.
and round and round we go (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just so entertaining to watch people find "free energy" in some form or another, by consuming some commonly available thing to produce energy, all the while completely ignoring the energy required to make the consumable.
Someone once described to me a process by which you use electrolysis to create hydrogen from water, and then burn that to create electricity, the surplus of which you can then use to create more hydrogen. (and you can even improve your yield by using the pure oxygen you are getting as a byproduct when creating the hydrogen!) And water is the free fuel! *SMACK*
Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:5, Insightful)
For all practical purposes, there is no waste aluminium.
Aluminium ore is plentiful but the costs to refine the ore into pure metal are very high. The technique uses tons of electricity to reverse the natural oxidation process. If you have post-consumer aluminium to start with, you can recover about 85% of the metal at a much lower energy cost. The lower energy cost is significant since it comprises 20% to 40% of the cost of production.
It sounds like these gentleman have discovered a faster way to get aluminium metal to oxidise to it's lower energy states with Hydrogen as a useful by-product. I'm curious how this would work past the surface area of an aluminium block. Aluminium oxide is incredibly durable, somewhat brittle, and rather impervious to oxygen. With a combination like that, the oxide protects the inner aluminium metal from further oxidation. I'll wager that's why their technique requires "small clusters" of atoms.
This sounds interesting as a use-once hydrogen battery, but it's not solving any global scale energy needs. The cost to produce aluminium metal is just too high. Still, it has a number of niche areas where it could be very useful. Aluminium could be seen as a high density battery for hydrogen powered fuel cells. It's relatively light, and could be incorporated into electrical generation systems for space vehicles.
Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:3, Insightful)
Or for stationary fuel cells, you can truck in the aluminium in powder form, deposit in a bunker or tank and have the system churn that into Hydrogen in safe to store quantaties. You dont need much to run a house if you add solar/wind and good thermal design into the mix, even in countries with lower output from solar, or wind.
I dont see hwo this would be much different to how my father had an oil tank at home and had it filled once a year to run the central heating.
Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:3, Insightful)
And what if you could use aluminium as the 'fuel' for your car? H2 is difficult and dangerous to store in a tank, but is nice as it runs in a more-or-less unmodified petrol engine. So if instead you could carry Al + H20 as the 'fuel', which creates H2, which your engine burns, the whole process is safer.
Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy (Score:1, Insightful)