Don’t lug it around, create it when you need it

Shamans at Purdue University have taken a different tack from the Danish on generating hydrogen for fuel. Rather than taking it with you in a stable container, these guys have figured out a pretty efficient way of generating it as you need it. Their process splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using and alloy of aluminum and gallium. It’s the same thing you did in High School chem class, but there’s no need for an electrical power source because the aluminum reacts to the water by attracting oxygen and releasing hydrogen. The gallium is used to keep the aluminum from ‘rusting’ which will stop the reactive process.

The gallium is a critical component because it hinders the formation of an aluminum oxide skin normally created on aluminum’s surface after bonding with oxygen, a process called oxidation. This skin usually acts as a barrier and prevents oxygen from reacting with aluminum. Reducing the skin’s protective properties allows the reaction to continue until all of the aluminum is used to generate hydrogen, said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.

So basically, you fill a tank full of water. The tank has this aluminum gallium alloy in it. The alloy starts to bleed off hydrogen and you’ve got a fuel source. Pretty nifty, I think. What’s even niftier is that the alloy is recyclable.

The gallium component is inert, which means it can be recovered and reused.

“This is especially important because of the currently much higher cost of gallium compared with aluminum,” Woodall said. “Because gallium can be recovered, this makes the process economically viable and more attractive for large-scale use. Also, since the gallium can be of low purity, the cost of impure gallium is ultimately expected to be many times lower than the high-purity gallium used in the electronics industry.”

As the alloy reacts with water, the aluminum turns into aluminum oxide, also called alumina, which can be recycled back into aluminum. The recycled aluminum would be less expensive than mining the metal, making the technology more competitive with other forms of energy production, Woodall said.

I said it before (not on this blog), and I’ll say it again. When my son is my age, the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine will be a thing of the past, a museum piece, and a chapter in an history text book. Now they just need to perfect the flying car and the personal jet pack.