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."

Comments

Al poduction consumes lots of energy

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Al poduction consumes lots of energy

[ebuck]

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:Still not.....

[Joce640k]

Pretty pointless - separating the aluminum from the oxygen will require the same amount of energy you got from the hydrogen.

Grant Money

[Anenome]

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?

[Rogerborg]

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.

Re:Still not.....

[MillionthMonkey]

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.