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A New Way To Produce Hydrogen
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."
Interesting scientifically but hardly practical for energy systems. Aluminium requires huge amounts of energy to produce, to the point where is is essentially "frozen electricity". Given that their end result is aluminium oxide, aren't they just recovering some of the energy that into refining?
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
Pretty pointless - separating the aluminum from the oxygen will require the same amount of energy you got from the hydrogen.
No sig today...
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.
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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).
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.
... 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).
Grey's Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
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*
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.