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The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel
Spy der Mann writes "A unique system that can produce Hydrogen inside a car using common metals such as Magnesium and Aluminum was recently developed by an Israeli company. The system solves all of the obstacles associated with the manufacturing, transporting and storing of hydrogen to be used in cars. And it's completely emission free."
first post to call bullshit! :: cough ::
Scott
I can produce methane inside my body using only common vegetables such as beans. OK, so it's not emission free.
From the article referenced by the Slashdot story: "The metal atoms will bond to the Oxygen from the water, creating metal oxide. As a result, the Hydrogen molecules are free, and will be sent into the engine alongside the steam."
This is just an example of moving the pollution elsewhere. The metal must be refined, at great cost to the environment. Then it is oxidized in a "pollution free" car.
Reading the article it says the way it works is by superheating water and using a metal catalyst to seperate H2 and O using the super heated steam and hydrogen to fuel the car. The problem not mentioned at all in the article is where does the super heated water come from?
In all seriousness, I wish them success. It remains to be seen whether they can create an efficient system for collecting the corroded/expended metal. How often do you see puddles of leaked material under a car? No mention of how much "metal oxide" this venicle produces, but I cannot imagine it's something we want leaked onto the ground.
I'd put my money on the H2N-Gen, but then again that guy's being sued for patent infringment.
No no. This simply can not be. The Oil companies, with their record profits, are developing this type of thing. If they haven't come up with it, then it simply does not exist.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Actually, a lot of Hydrogen Economy True Believers need to enroll in that same class. Nothing against hydrogen per se, but half the nation seems to think of it as an energy source, which of course it isn't..
Yes, you can get hydrogen out of acids by combining them with metals like aluminium or magnesium -- or hell, even sodium with water. But the cost of refining these metals in the first place is very high.
For instance, aluminium is produced by electrolysis: the ore is dissolved in cryolite, and the pure metal produced by passing an electric current through it. (Details)
There's a number of aluminium smelters in Australia (my home country); at least one of these has its own dedicated power plant, burning brown coal to produce its electricity.
So no, it's not "making its own fuel". The fuel is the refined metal and the acids (or water) that are combined with them to make the hydrogen gas. The fact that burning the hydrogen is what generates the useful energy is irrelevant to this point. The pollution is shifted to wherever the power to make the metals is produced.
When it comes to energy, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
I don't get it... What does a built in vacuuem have to do with fuel?
remove the used magnesium oxide. Essentially, the waste is contained in the car instead of spewed out, and I think there is a use for magnesium oxide. Also they need to change the water. Since they have to take stuff out of the tank, refueling is a bit more complicated.
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your press releases.
Sleep is futile.
One thing I've learned over the years: Slashdot editors aren't much interested in science. The publish a lot of pseudo-science articles, or nonsense science articles like this one.
The issue here is that the process works, but it is very expensive in energy, because the metal oxide must be refined.
Anyhow, there is nothing new in the referenced article. The fact that it is possible to produce hydrogen using reactive metals has been known since perhaps 1860, maybe much earlier.
If I remember correctly, there was an explosion in Antoine Laurent Lavoisier's lab caused by hydrogen released by heating with metal. Mr. Lavoisier died in 1794, and not from the explosion.
LISA! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!!
Read about magnesium on wikipedia. It's a very reactive metal. Put it this way - you don't want to have a pile of magnesium shavings sitting around your house. If it catches fire, there's no way of putting it out. It can 'burn' without oxygen, in a pure nitrogen atmosphere.
Spokesbossy for ominous cow herds everywhere.
Water price dips to $50 a barrel...
This is the very kind of article that belongs on Slashdot. The whole point of posting something like this is having it taken apart and scrutinized by the Slashdot community.
How much fun would an article be was bullet proof? There would be nothing to say about it.
.: Max Romantschuk
100kg of aluminum costs around $200 at ~$2/kg. Looking at the graph on this page for Aluminum manufacturing costs, about 75% of the cost is raw materials and supplies (mostly the aluminum). So that's at least $50 net to fill up your "tank" assuming perfect effeciency in converting that aluminum.
Neglecting the costs of taking the recycled aluminum oxide out of your car and turning it back into Al rods, the maintaince costs for the fuel station, infrastructure costs to build all this, and so forth. Shipping costs will of course astronomically climb since metal can only be transfered in by train, truck or ship unlike cheap pipelines and is also no longer an easily moveable liquid. Nevermind the cost of your aluminum powered car itself, or the engineering difficulties inherent in moving a 100kg metal coil into your engine, this "upgrade" is already going to break the bank.
I think I'll leave the hydrogen production outside of the vehicle, thank you. Nice try, but no dice.
And it's completely emission free.
Ah, so the processes for gaining the aluminum and magnesium are completely green! The mining does no damage, getting the the metals out of the ore releases no pollutants and the process takes no nasty chemicals or fuel.
What a revolution!
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Aluminum plants are being demolished at an amazing rate. A plant in Troutdale Or. I had done work for in 2001 was leveled. Likewise most of the existing aluminum plants in the USA have been flattened due to energy costs. Sounds like a great way to save energy, reduce alumina to aluminum and then reduce aluminum to alumina.
I doubt there is enough smelter capacity to supply beer can and airplane part requirements without recycling the metal that is in the system.
BTW: Beer can metal is a top grade alloy. Last I heard, 27 cans/Lb.
A plant in Troutdale Or. I had done work for in 2001 was leveled.
I have more information on that.
The plant operated with reduced energy costs. They bought excess BPA power wholsale, not retail. This included shutting down operation when surplus power (spring runoff from hydro power, low residentual heating demand, not yet heavy AC season in LA) was in short supply. Even with cheap energy costs, the cost of operation finaly failed to make economic sense.
Sounds like a great way to save energy, reduce alumina to aluminum and then reduce aluminum to alumina.
If anyone thinks aluminum and other metal prices are not related to the rising price of energy, they have not been paying attention.
When gas prices then electric prices go up, so does smeltering costs.. This is not a breakthrough in high fuel prices.
The truth shall set you free!
Man, are you stupid. The entire freaking Sun is filled with metal oxide.
Sorry, there ought to be a Godwin's law about calling people stupid.
My grandmother was G. R. Caughlin (as in Fowler, Caughlin, and Zimmerman-- the authors of s seminal paper on the generation of elements in stars). Some of their figures have been refined by others but the general theories seem to hold. So while I may not be an astrophysicist, I am not entirely unfamiliar with the field either.
Part of the problem with your theory is that metal oxides don't exist in the sun in any way you might think. First, stars are powered by fusion of hydrogen and helium (in terms of alpha capture-- you have the possibility of three helium nuclei fusing to form Carbon12). C12 can then capture another alpha particle (helium nucleus) to form Oxygen. Although I don't really understand the rest of the physics, I gather that many of the heavier elements are generated in the stars through other processes as the star ages. So for the sun, I would expect most of the sun to consist of Hydrogen, Helium, Carbon, and Oxygen.
(Hydrogen is fused into helium, 3 heliums become carbon, carbon + helium becomes oxygen. The Oxygen does not seem to fuse at these temperatures though one wonders about neutron capture.)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Aluminum doesn't spontaneously oxidize when you leave it out in a 21% oxygen atmosphere, does it?
Actually, it does. In all likelihood, you've never actually seen pure aluminum, just aluminum oxide. The reason that we can have things such as aluminum foil or aluminum can is that aluminum oxide forms an airtight barrier, preventing the underlying aluminum from further oxidation. Aluminum is exposed when you tear the foil, but it (nearly instantly) oxidises and reforms the protective layer. This becomes an issue in bulk processing of aluminum for powder (for things like paint and some pyrotechnic compositions). If the aluminum is not "burped" in the process of breaking down the particles, the powder will absorb all of the oxygen in the container, and the newly exposed surface area will cease to oxidise. When the lid id opened, "poof!" all of the unoxidised Al is suddenly exposed to a supply of O2, and a fast, exothermic reaction takes place. Being a highly reactive metal in a finely powdered state, this is BAD, but I digress...
That's right, I read at +2 and post at +1. Not even I care what I have to say.
Only up to Iron. After that they're all made in supernovae, as iron fusion is endothermic.
That said, this is a bass-ackwards way to do something that was done better at Livermore perhaps 30 years ago ( you can find a reference in the old "Access to Energy" newsletter by Petr Beckmann, if any of those are online ). Some Lawrence Livermore scientists developed a metal-air battery, which produced electricity directly from the reaction of the metal (aluminum or zinc plates, IIRC) with air via some catalytic electrode system. Like the Israeli system, you ended up with powdered metal oxide. Unlike the Israeli indirect-combustion system, the metal-air battery efficiencies were high and direct drive electrical power was produced, so you could control power to the wheels, do regenerative braking, etc. Since the metal-air battery produces electricity directly, the energy efficiency is probably 4X to 5X better than a hydrogen generator feeding a heat engine. With the metal-air battery you also can get the additional efficiency of a hybrid-type vehicle, so my guess is that you have 10X to 20X more energy efficiency than the Israeli Metal / Hydrogen / Internal Combustion / Mechanical Linkage system.
The Livermore engineers did not use magnesium, or sodium, or lithium, or other light metals. These metals pack higher energy density than aluminum. They also easy to ignite and burn very easily, with flames that are impossible to put out in air (sodium even burns in water). Yes, hydrogen burns faster (Hindenburg! Hindenburg! Oooooh scary!). But hydrogen burns UP, while burning metal just stays around and does a thermite/napalm number on you and your car. A magnesium slab in a car is NOT safer than a hydrogen tank in a car.
Even with the much better efficiency, Air-Metal batteries are not practical. It takes far too much energy to refine the metal, and handling metal and debris, cleaning the system, etc. are all far too much work. Now divide the value by 20, and wonder what those Israelis are smoking ...
P.S. Some researchers claim that the Hindenburg caught fire because of the ignition of the highly volatile doped fabric, which in turn set fire to the metal in the dirigible frame. The hot hydrogen vented upwards, remember, heating up the air far above the Hindenburg, but not affecting the passengers underneath. They got roasted by the burning dirigible body.
Keith Lofstrom server-sky.com
a) The metal industry will need energy to make the wires. Al, for one, uses a hell of a lot of electrical energy to be produced (not sure about Mg). Where does the electrical energy come from? Some more nuclear power plants? Thank you. (1)
b) What about the infrastructure needed to carry the wires along? More trucks on the road? Powered by what? In Europe: Thank you.
c) How much water is needed to make enough Hydrogen to get the power of a conventional car? Has this amount of water been added to the additional weight and size of the car? Even if the weight of the coil does not affect the performance of the car, the coil and the water will add to the weight, and hence reduce the overall efficiency.
d) What is the efficiency behind the in-car process?
e) What overall ecologic efficiency can be reached, as compared to other technologies?
I admit the metal industry and the large energy corporations may not be that interested in answering all these questions. The photo of the car on the web site suggests this technology is ready to go. IMHO it has a LONG way to go.
OK, let's move on.
(1) And an excellent idea for the developing countries as well, where the track record of safe nuclear power plants is that long.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
It works too. It was used by the Nazis to produce hydrazine for a rocket propelled plane.
That counts as irony.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
from somewhere... oh yeah! That's clearly a lifted picture of the Shelby GR-1 concept car at the top of their "press release."
Here's a desktop version from Serious Wheels.com for you car nuts.
Laugh!
"Why is it that every time I need to get somewhere we get waylaid by jackassery? PANTS!" - Doc Venture
Here is the link to the Article the Parent Submitted. Note that at the bottom of the page, it says that the posted was not the original article, and links to the original - which was the one that the Slashdot editor used.
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