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An RC Car That Runs On Soda Can Rings
polyp2000 writes with an Engadget excerpt to inspire instant toy envy: "A pair of Spanish engineers have recently unveiled the dAlH2Orean (see what they did there?), a R/C car that runs on aluminum. Dropping a few soda can tabs into a tank of sodium hydroxide produces enough hydrogen to power the little speedster for 40 minutes — at almost 20mph."
Just on an intuitive level, I'm a touch surprised that they managed to get that much running time out of the system.
On consideration, of course, the energy required to coax aluminum out of whatever compound it has formed this time and into a bulk metallic state is pretty heroic. That does suggest that(while the aluminum oxide layer passivates it nicely under normal circumstances) bulk aluminum has some serious potential energy.
Where we're going we don't need roads.
I'm no chemist, but doesn't this also consume the sodium hydroxide? Isn't that the actual source of the hydrogen atoms?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
FTA: There may be another way to transport electricity, using the Aluminum battery as a medium. Each kilogram of Aluminum produced represents about 14 KWh of electricity, used to produce the ingots. This means that if we ship 20,000 Tons of Aluminum to Europe, we would be transporting the equivalent of 20,000,000 * 14 KWh of electricity. This is 280 GWh of electricity, enough to power 500,000 households in Europe for a year. The question, of course, is how can we free this electricity from the Aluminum transported. Here comes the Aluminum battery. Using Aluminum electrodes in a simple electrochemical cell, filled with seawater or Sodium Hydroxide solution and using a Nickel-Manganese counter electrode, the Aluminum will be oxidized to Aluminum Hydroxide and give off 3 electrons per Al atom used up in the reaction. A large part of the electricity stored in the above 20,000 tons of Aluminum can in this way be released, generating about 280 GWh of electricity and about 60,000 tons of Al(OH)3 sludge. This sludge could be recycled back to Iceland to generate again 20,000 tons of Aluminum to start the process of electricity generation anew. http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=717
Just like my car runs on oxygen.
now we need bigger cars / trains that can run on this.
Does this digesting bits of aluminum cans: clean up the environment; cause greenhouse gases; or generate a toxic pollutants that will cause birth defects in our future children?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Of course it's a cool little project; but I think if this scaled we would have heard about it by now.
I've heard it takes the equivalent of 1 cup of gasoline to produce 1 Al can. Then you have to account for the NaOH production. That requires energy. Then you have to consider the waste product. You can probably recover aluminum from the waste; but you still have to dispose of it properly. A proper disposal system would be closed though, instead of rejecting waste into the atmosphere as we do with ICE engines. Of course, you will probably still be rejecting waste into the atmosphere at the plant that produces the NaOH and Al powder.
Long story short, I bet the overall efficiency of the cycle isn't very good; but it's a cute hack.
It doesn't run on aluminium, it runs on aluminium _and_ sodium hydroxide.
Next they will work on a R/C car that runs on the tears of orphans. Renewable energy FTW!
This happens much, much too often on Slashdot.
Aluminum takes a terrible lot of energy to refine from ore. The one good thing about that is that it's really easily recycled, so those aluminum cans sometimes get to be part of something again. But when you dissolve it in draino, and then, inevitably, dispose of the result in your landfill or sewer, you lose all of that energy and make some nasty pollution. What you get back in energy isn't a tiny fraction of what went in.
But they got a patent. Because the patent office doesn't care if your work is good, only that it's original. So, a lot of ignorant people will be impressed by their "innovation".
This would have been cool for a high-school science-fair project. Much too much bad science runs here.
Bruce Perens.
For those who don't recognize it, sodium hydroxide is more commonly known as lye. Not sure I would want to be in an accident in a full size vehicle powered by lye.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
If I had this engine, I could use all of my empty energy drink cans to power everything in my room!
This happens much, much too often on Slashdot.
Aluminum takes a terrible lot of energy to refine from ore. The one good thing about that is that it's really easily recycled, so those aluminum cans sometimes get to be part of something again. But when you dissolve it in draino, and then, inevitably, dispose of the result in your landfill or sewer, you lose all of that energy and make some nasty pollution. What you get back in energy isn't a tiny fraction of what went in.
But they got a patent. Because the patent office doesn't care if your work is good, only that it's original. So, a lot of ignorant people will be impressed by their "innovation".
This would have been cool for a high-school science-fair project. Much too much bad science runs here.
But given the fact that most people don't get paid for dumping their aluminum in the recycle bin, this could be a good invention. You get to extract energy from the aluminum in your cans and use it yourself, rather than give it away to someone else for free.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
But given the fact that most people don't get paid for dumping their aluminum in the recycle bin, this could be a good invention. You get to extract energy from the aluminum in your cans and use it yourself, rather than give it away to someone else for free.
Is it really costing you that much to power all your RC toys? Or are you taking an article about a toy car way too seriously? (Granted, so was Mr. Perens...)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
They do?
;)
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
Since when is this a place to so drastically misrepresent something that the readers only think it's cool because they don't understand it? This happens all the time now. Sensationalism is growing threat to society's collective scientific comprehension.
With all that left over lye, you can open a few clogged drains!
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Self-powered, self-recycling cars made of.... aluminum?
4wdloop
This doesn't need refined aluminum. Dissolving bauxite in sodium hydroxide is the first step of the Bayer process for refining aluminum.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Sure. Let's all do this. Let's power up our cars by improvised H2 generators using discarded aluminum cans. Ignore practical considerations such as: does the average household generate enough alumionum waste to cover its energy requirements, prioce and safe handling of sodium hydroxide, disposal of aluminum sodium oxide etc.
Fast forward 1 year. Most people who had started using the aluminum powered cars have abandoned the system.
Why? Not enough waste aluminum generated by the household.
Why? The price of canned soda has skyrocketed.
Why? The deposit on cans has suddenly gone up from 5-10cents per can to %1.50 per can
Why? Canners can't get cheap aluminum anymore
Why? Aluminum doesn't get recycled anymore because it gets burned instead. So canners need to buy "new" aluminum, which costs a lot more. Why? It takes a lot of electricity to refine from ore.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
But they got a patent. Because the patent office doesn't care if your work is good, only that it's original. So, a lot of ignorant people will be impressed by their "innovation".
That's very true and something I never really considered. As odd as it seems, I suppose that's a good thing!
disposal of the waste (tetrahydroxoaluminate) would be "sell it to the smelters". This is the first step of the Bayer process for refining aluminum from bauxite.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Such negative comments by supposedly gadget-loving geeks. I suppose you've never heard of the Chem-E-Car Competition. Although this is an RC car and the Chem-E-Car rules don't allow that.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
You're too quick to dismiss this. As a chemist I'm able to appreciate the simplicity and energy density of aluminum metal. The problem with this and other powerful reducing agents (fuels) is that they are dangerously flammable under the wrong conditions. Nevermind the energy demands associated with producing it - the key is really to heat the aluminium oxide/fluoride ore bauxite up and get it good and melting in a big iron container which serves as the cathode for the electrochemical cell. The anode of choice, at least my best guess is good old carbon or graphite. Yes, it takes a lot of current to reduce the aluminum, but that's the freaking point. It's an energy storage medium. But anyhow, if you have a ready source of thermal energy and/or electricity, like say a nuclear reactor, this is moot. Aluminum is hella lot better to cart around than hydrogen gas ( very poor energy density ).
The idea of reducing/oxidizing a metal for energy is the principle for many existing battery designs, so the idea isn't new. Many of the problems are already apparent in other implementations, like the infamous "exploding" (I doubt they exploded, but they surely burnt hot and bright) lithium batteries.
Indeed, lithium (metal) and aluminum are powerful, energy-dense fuels. Lithium is so reactive (and yet the least among group I metals) that it reacts spontaneously with oxygen in the air while its oxide dissolves in whatever atmospheric moisture it can suck up. Aluminum is probably nearly as electro-positive (I'm not checking a periodic table) and sports three electrons' worth of reducing power relative to lithium's one donor electron. Its self-passivization just might make it the right tool for a bunch of cool applications where lithium and other alkalis are too reactive, too. Unfortunately its a solid and not readily mechanically metered like gasoline so it may be some time before we find it as a direct source of mechanical power in our automobiles, but you never know.
And yet it's still more original than anything you, or your offspring will ever create/invent.
LOL
And with a Slashdot ID that low, I'm pretty sure he's the real one.
If only we had a way to produce plentiful amounts of cheap energy, all our problems would be solved.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And some diesel off course, but that is unimportant.
It's about 12 cent a kwh where I am, and considering my entire 1500 milliamp hour 7.2 volt pack takes a whole 10.8 watt hours of energy to charge, that's roughly 0.12 cents for each charge.
I remember reading (years ago) in a popular science magazine that someone was proposing using iron filings and steam to generate H2 on-board for use in fuel cells. Iron oxide is a heck of a lot easier to re-form back into iron than any Aluminum salt or oxide is, I'm sure. (You could use electricity, or better yet, coal, which would make the "clean" coal people throw money at the idea).
(Fe + 3H20 = FeO3 +3H2 I believe)
Of course, getting H2 out of reacting a metal with an acid or a base is not necessarily a novel idea...but I haven't heard of anyone using it to run a fuel cell yet...
Oh sure, "sell it to the smelters", thanks for offering a non solution, you might want to try it before suggesting it.
Here's an easy test with a readily available toxic product, take an old 12 volt lead/acid car battery to a Lead Smelter and see how long they Laugh at you before they turn you away.
"sell it to the smelters" indeed.
I suppose I should have put the period after "the patent office doesn't care."
Bruce Perens.
Aluminium takes about 15kWh per kilogram to produce. Even if a larger car consumes only half as much mass relative to its own mass, a 1kg RC car using 10g of aluminium would scale up to a 1 ton car using 5kg, or 75kWh, for 20*2/3 miles, or approximately 20 kilomaters traveled, or 325kWh/100km.
For comparison. a Tesla Roadster uses 17kWh per 100km.
And I'm sure that refiners have recovered the hydrogen from that process. This isn't inventing new chemistry, just a new application. And IMO, not a very good one.
Bruce Perens.
They're called uranium, thorium, and breeder reactors.
Pbbfft... Name me one thing, ONE, that is better than RC cars. Go ahead, I can wait. Now don't you think powering such inventions should be humanity's sole purpose on this planet?
Thought so.
Monstar L
How much energy does it take to make the aluminum? Considering that 2/3 of the electricity in the US is coal that could be an issue.
How environmentally friendly is the production of lye?
Same question for the vinegar.
How will the waste products be collected and refined considering that it will be mostly water?
This process focuses on one "green" section of the chain and shows how simple it is. It neglects the other steps because they will be shown to be not green. It is the same thing for plug in electric cars. Sure the car has zero emissions but the coal power plants that generated the electricity to charge the car have lots of emissions.
I used to work on PCB (circuit board) construction as a hobby.
For those who don't know:
This involves taking metal coated circuit boards, coating the places where you want the metal to stay (the circuit traces) with some kind of resistant ink or tape, and putting the board into a tray of "etchant" (acid) which will eat away the copper that's not protected. However, at room temperature, it takes long enough that the acid can eat its way underneath the tape/ink as well, so typically the tray is heated and physically agitated somehow to speed up the reaction.
One time I left the machine on too long, and the tray (which was black) ended up melting from the heat of the heat lamp. The etchant solution of course leaked out, and it ATE THROUGH the aluminum brackets which held the plastic etchant liquid tray in place.
So then I realized "hmm it eats aluminum too", which makes sense. I decided to test this with aluminum foil. Normal food aluminum foil is covered by plastic, so there is a somewhat delayed reaction as it starts only at the edges of the sheet. As it starts to dissolve, though, it heats up and makes a lot of heat, which makes the reaction go faster and faster, releasing odd smelling fumes in the process.
Next we tried another experiment, putting some solution into a coke bottle, and putting a nice sized wad of aluminum foil in there. KaBOOM! It makes a very loud sound, and quite a mess (for outdoor use only), spraying the hot etchant solution everywhere.
You can even pre-prepare these somewhat ahead of time by making the wad of foil such that it stays in the neck of the bottle until you shake the crap out of it. (I wouldn't store it inside though!!!)
Although commercial production techniques tend to use strong/pure muriatic acids, I would strongly recommend against using that for obvious reasons. On the other hand, the etching solution used by hobbyists is a relatively weak chemical called "Ferric Chloride" that you can buy at radio shack. It basically looks like liquid rust, and it will stain nearly anything.
Don't worry so much over this. As soon as this is refined to pose a legitimate threat to petroleum fuel engines General Motors will purchase the patent for ungodly amounts of money and lock it away with the vegetable oil engine patent and the dawn dish washing liquid engine patent to make sure they keep their stock holders' investments in petroleum nice and inflated.
One word: Scale.
Take a small amount of n to an n smelter, and they'll laugh at you -- it's not worth their time to deal with such quantities.
Offer to sell a few railcars full of n to them, and you'll have their interest immediately.
(Where n is this funky spent aluminum, or lead-acid batteries, or steel, or iron, or copper, or...)
This is where recycling centers and scrap yards come into play. They consolidate the goods into sufficient quantities that they are worth transporting and bargaining for. There's a place not far from here that pays $8 for old car batteries, and they're happy to buy them one at a time, but they're not a smelter.
To use a computer analogy: Try to buy a single CPU from Intel and see how long they Laugh at you before they turn you away.
Kid-proof tablet..
I don't see your reasons as being obvious at all. But then, I'm a practical guy when it comes to chemistry, not an experienced tinkerer.
I can get muriatic acid at Menards in gallon-sized tins for next to nothing: It's used for removing mortar from brick. (It's probably even cheaper, and in bigger containers, from the local masonry supply house.)
What are the reasons that I should use ferric chloride instead?
Kid-proof tablet..
They got a patent on this???? TFA is really short, but this is BASIC chem shit.
"Strong bases attack aluminium. Sodium hydroxide reacts with aluminium and water to release hydrogen gas. The aluminium takes the oxygen atom from sodium hydroxide (NaOH), which in turn takes the oxygen atom from the water, and releases the two hydrogen atoms. In this reaction, sodium hydroxide acts as an agent to make the solution alkaline, which aluminium can dissolve in. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide#Reactions
if ya just want some H2, from a reaction of a metal and a solution, seems easier to me to throw some zinc in some HCL
Zn + 2HCl = ZnCl2 + H2
Safety wise, I know given the choice of getting HCL or NaOH spilled on me, I would choose HCL.
I think zinc is cheaper too.
I KNOW HCL is cheaper. You can pick up a 55 gallon drum CHEAP at the pool supply store.
hell, zinc and NaOH does the same thing, also.
Zn + NaOH ----> Na2ZnO2+ H2
Or zinc and sulfuric acid(the shit in your car battery)
Zn + H2SO4 ==> ZnSO4 + H2
this is HARLDY novel.
You learn these reactions in a high scool chem class, not even AP. Where are you seeing anything about a patent bruce?
RC planes. (Posted anon 'cause I modded up thread.)
RC Helicopters.
You can probably recover aluminum from the waste; but you still have to dispose of it properly
Aluminum is a major component of clays, rocks, and sands. It's not a waste, it's part of nature. According to Wikipedia: In the Earth's crust, aluminium is the most abundant (8.3% by weight) metallic element and the third most abundant of all elements (after oxygen and silicon).
RC Cola.
"Publici"? Weren't they one of the classes of Roman citizens?
You don't actually get it back for free - the fact that many/most cans are recycled is part of the purchase price. If nobody recycles their cans, the price will increase. The usual tragedy of the commons.
So pay the recyclers then, here in Sweden we get payed when recycling cans and bottles.
Here's a paper on the reaction, by different people at the same university, and there's also this 2003 patent by two people named Erling Andersen, who don't seem to be at Barcelona, and a corresponding European patent EP1301433. The Andersen patent is cited in the Barcelona paper. I didn't find a patent on the battery application by the folks who made the model car. It looks like there's abundant prior art for the Andersen patent. This whole thing reads like a parody of patent abuse.
Bruce Perens.
I believe he meant "not registered with the patent office yet" as opposed to "original" although even this distinction doesn't always matter.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
The video wasn't too clear on just HOW the car runs on hydrogen, but it looks like there is a fuel cell that converts the H2 into electrical power to run the RC cars' electric motors. I suppose they could have converted a 4 cycle gasoline RC engine to run on H2 (normal RC engines using glow plugs run on Alcohol on a semi diesel principle).
Has anyone thought of making a pull-tab powered wheelchair?
While electric cars just seem to move the 'pollution' and greenhouse gases from the automobile to the power plant, you over look the matter of scale. A single well maintained large power plant can be more efficient than thousands of smaller internal combustion engines in various stages of poor adjustment. It's easier to control pollution at a single point then at thousands of points.
Seriously, I'm off to patent my Mentos and Diet Coke method of vehicular propulsion.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
That picture of you on wikipedia is awful, you should offer them a better one :)
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Also, as the power generation moves to cleaner sources (hydro, nuclear, whatever), the electric car automatically gets cleaner, while the gasoline car stays just as dirty...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I agree that electricity is cleaner but it is not zero emission which is what is being touted by the electric car manufacturers. Tell it like it is; an electric car is only as clean as the technology used to generate the electricity. Vehicle manufacturers will not do that because it makes their products look less green. There are high mileage compact cars that emit less greenhouse gasses than some hybrids and I bet in some areas, such as the north east of the US where power is mostly coal, even better than pure electric.
This argument assumes that those coal power plants will always be there. You don't think there will ever be cleaner technologies used? If you base your buying decision for a car that will last you hopefully around 10 years on the power generation currently in use, than you are missing the improvements that will happen to power generation over time. What is to say that you couldn't just cover that electric car with solar panels and just leave it charge while you are in work?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Lets look at a few holes in your argument.
1. Since 2/3 of the electricity in the US is currently coal based to make electricity clean and meet you goal you would have to replace that capacity in the next ten years. That is not going to happen as new plants are barely keeping up with rising demand. Some of that demand being driven by supplying electric cars.
2. The top surface area of a small car is about 24sq-ft. A solar cell I looked up created 13W/sq-ft. That mean that the cells on a car could produce 312W. The battery on a Leaf holds 24 kWh. To charge that battery with the solar panels on the car would take 24000/312 = 77 hours. That gives a 109 mile range. An eight hour charge gives you a eleven mile range. According to the US DoT 49% of commuters travel more than 11 miles one way to work. In fact if you travel more than six miles you will have to plug the car in some time. Another issue is that in most cities parking is underground so no sunlight (sorry but you will not be able to charge using inside lighting).
3. I am also not talking about what will happen in ten years. Right now car companies are touting electric cars as zero emission; that is not true right now. Right now the electric car companies are telling an untruth.
When all electricity used by electric cars is generated using zero emission technology the car companies are free to call them zero emission; until then that statement is false. That is the problem with absolute statements like "zero emission"; they are rarely true.
Considering the (almost) free availabilty of aluminium cans, and the inexpense of sodium hydroxide, and there's a lot of energy locked up in metallic Aluminum, would this be a useful source of hydrogen for some kind of practical DIY purpose that you might need a flammable gas for (power generation, a lamp, cooking, small motor like a lawnmower etc). Does it produce enough gas and assuming cheap NaOH and free aluminum cans, is it a cheap enough energy hack?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Then I'll have an opportunity