The SolZinc process described there uses carbon in the ZnO reduction, and works at 1200C, compare with 1650C = 4000F for the prototype in this post.
Key quote:
Mobile fuel cell: There are already projects to run vehicles such as buses on zinc-air fuel cells. If these could be moved down to cars, the results could be quite impressive; a vehicle using 250 Wh/mile would require only 179 grams of zinc (2.74 moles) per mile. Zinc is a reasonably dense metal at 7.14 g/cc; solid zinc would yield about 40 miles to the liter, or upwards of 150 miles per gallon (powdered forms would not be quite so energy-dense). The carbon monoxide would also be surplus in this scenario.
The actual available energy (electricity) from a Zn-air fuel cell is several times as great as what can be obtained from the same chemical input of gasoline to an internal combustion engine. The metallic zinc contains about 90% as much energy as the input carbon, and it can be converted to motion with very high efficiency. It appears likely that a solar-mediated zinc reduction process using coal could power 3.5 times as many vehicle-miles as a conversion of coal to liquid fuel.
Infrastructure is the questionable issue. If we ship zinc metal out as fuel then we have to ship it back for recycling, or get the zinc oxide to another solar plant. (If we ship hydrogen we have to manage the bulk.) But we did it with coal.
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This article from 2005 on a different ZnO-Zn process may be of interest:
Zinc: Miracle Metal?
The SolZinc process described there uses carbon in the ZnO reduction, and works at 1200C, compare with 1650C = 4000F for the prototype in this post.
Key quote:
Mobile fuel cell: There are already projects to run vehicles such as buses on zinc-air fuel cells. If these could be moved down to cars, the results could be quite impressive; a vehicle using 250 Wh/mile would require only 179 grams of zinc (2.74 moles) per mile. Zinc is a reasonably dense metal at 7.14 g/cc; solid zinc would yield about 40 miles to the liter, or upwards of 150 miles per gallon (powdered forms would not be quite so energy-dense). The carbon monoxide would also be surplus in this scenario.
The actual available energy (electricity) from a Zn-air fuel cell is several times as great as what can be obtained from the same chemical input of gasoline to an internal combustion engine. The metallic zinc contains about 90% as much energy as the input carbon, and it can be converted to motion with very high efficiency. It appears likely that a solar-mediated zinc reduction process using coal could power 3.5 times as many vehicle-miles as a conversion of coal to liquid fuel.
Infrastructure is the questionable issue. If we ship zinc metal out as fuel then we have to ship it back for recycling, or get the zinc oxide to another solar plant. (If we ship hydrogen we have to manage the bulk.) But we did it with coal.
We should call them ... gabbroids!