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."

Comments

Headline: Bad Student Work Gets Tons of Publicity

[Bruce Perens]

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.

Re:Interesting...

[compro01]

Extracting aluminum from aluminum hydroxide is the standard method (the Bayer process) for refining aluminum from bauxite.