The use of hydrogen and other gases and liquids in fuel cells is hampered by manufacturing, distribution and compression issues.
Many of these fuels are hard to make in quantity, are derived today from fossil fuels, suffer from limited distribution infrastructure and must be dangerously compressed in tanks.
Breakthroughs in chemistry and technology have provided the opportunity for aluminum, an abundant and fully recyclable metal, to be used as a fuel to generate electricity in fuel cells, both efficiently and economically.
While not widely thought of as a fuel, aluminum is high in energy, plentiful, fully recyclable and safe to transport and store. New breakthroughs are starting to be made in the field—see Gallium and aluminum tigers in your tank?
A company at the forefront of this science is Altek Fuel Group. Learn more about the company's proposed technology, and how it has enabled aluminum to become viable and competitive in the energy marketplace, in its technical paper below.
Submitted by Luber (not verified) on June 28, 2008 - 12:59pm.
You're off by at least an order of magnitude. They clearly show that the stoichiometry works out to 9kg of Al consumed per 1kg of hydrogen produced, which is roughly the energy equivalent of 1 gal of gasoline; with an electric motor powered by a high-efficiency fuel cell in a modern vehicle, that 1kg of H2 should translate to around 50-100 miles, i.e., ~5-10 miles per pound of Al. The water is recycled so not a big weight penalty; the real issue is that the 50kg or so of Al you'd have to carry to have a workable range becomes ~100kg of oxide that you have to collect and lug around with you to recycle - the car gets heavier as you drive it.
Interesting page on using boron as a fuel here:
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html
(similar problem with the oxide of course, but some interesting properties)
Submitted by Mike Dempsey (not verified) on July 31, 2008 - 7:57pm.
Dear Luber,
You seem smart. I have a question. I believe that solar power or wind power systems cannot produce enough energy in their lifetimes to reproduce themselves. That is, wind or solar plants could not provide enough energy to mine and transport the Al, pump and refine the oil; smelt the iron, copper, silicon, etc. Assemble and transport the components (tower, blades, motors. etc.) to repay the energy debt they have made in their construction. I believe that nuclear hydrocarbon (mostly coal) and hydro electric systems would have to provide all this energy to build the wind or solar systems. A negative energy deficit. I cannot find any data on the web regarding this. Do you have any direction for me?
Submitted by Luber (not verified) on August 7, 2008 - 8:53pm.
Thanks Mike - that's a tough question, which will take teams of smart people years to answer, and they're working on it. The reason it's hard is that one has to consider all of the elements that go into the "control volume"; that is, the line you draw around your model system where you can measure or calculate all the material and energy that goes in and out. One of the reasons that biofuels have had such a hard time getting started is that these kinds of calculations were difficult to do; just recently a real-world, field scale study of switchgrass farming for fuel was completed (Schmer, M.R., et al., Net energy of cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008. 105(2): p. 464-469.), and they found that you can indeed make more energy than you use to grow it, about 3-5 times as much; the problem is, that energy is not in an easily useable form such as gasoline, so it will take some more engineering to get there.
For solar and wind, I'm not that familiar with what's involved, but producing steel etc., relies on a whole societal infrastructure, so it's much harder to make a control volume - for that matter, how much energy does it take to make a tractor? The easiest thing to do with those types of goods is to put it in terms of money, but of course the price of oil is a major contributor. That said, there are cheaper ways to do things, e.g. recycled steel is a lot cheaper than producing it from iron ore. The main problem with current generation photovoltaic (polycrystalline silicon) cells is that they have a short useful lifetime, although new PV technologies are in development. I believe we currently already have the technology to produce wind and thermal solar power generators that can last essentially indefinitely, with some material and energy input for maintenance, which will greatly reduce their amortized energy cost. And the fuel is free and should last another few billion years ;-)
1 pound of aluminum per 1
1 pound of aluminum per 1 mile.
Plus 2.5 gallons of water per equivalent gallon of gasoline.
Thats pretty darn heavy.
Besides which Gallium is far too rare a resource to use it that recklessly.
-David Ahlport
How did you get 1lb Al/mile + 2.5 gal water? Read the PDF
You're off by at least an order of magnitude. They clearly show that the stoichiometry works out to 9kg of Al consumed per 1kg of hydrogen produced, which is roughly the energy equivalent of 1 gal of gasoline; with an electric motor powered by a high-efficiency fuel cell in a modern vehicle, that 1kg of H2 should translate to around 50-100 miles, i.e., ~5-10 miles per pound of Al. The water is recycled so not a big weight penalty; the real issue is that the 50kg or so of Al you'd have to carry to have a workable range becomes ~100kg of oxide that you have to collect and lug around with you to recycle - the car gets heavier as you drive it.
Interesting page on using boron as a fuel here:
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html
(similar problem with the oxide of course, but some interesting properties)
Question
Dear Luber,
You seem smart. I have a question. I believe that solar power or wind power systems cannot produce enough energy in their lifetimes to reproduce themselves. That is, wind or solar plants could not provide enough energy to mine and transport the Al, pump and refine the oil; smelt the iron, copper, silicon, etc. Assemble and transport the components (tower, blades, motors. etc.) to repay the energy debt they have made in their construction. I believe that nuclear hydrocarbon (mostly coal) and hydro electric systems would have to provide all this energy to build the wind or solar systems. A negative energy deficit. I cannot find any data on the web regarding this. Do you have any direction for me?
Thanks,
Mike Dempsey
Please respond to ucap36@msn.com
Energy balance question
Thanks Mike - that's a tough question, which will take teams of smart people years to answer, and they're working on it. The reason it's hard is that one has to consider all of the elements that go into the "control volume"; that is, the line you draw around your model system where you can measure or calculate all the material and energy that goes in and out. One of the reasons that biofuels have had such a hard time getting started is that these kinds of calculations were difficult to do; just recently a real-world, field scale study of switchgrass farming for fuel was completed (Schmer, M.R., et al., Net energy of cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008. 105(2): p. 464-469.), and they found that you can indeed make more energy than you use to grow it, about 3-5 times as much; the problem is, that energy is not in an easily useable form such as gasoline, so it will take some more engineering to get there.
For solar and wind, I'm not that familiar with what's involved, but producing steel etc., relies on a whole societal infrastructure, so it's much harder to make a control volume - for that matter, how much energy does it take to make a tractor? The easiest thing to do with those types of goods is to put it in terms of money, but of course the price of oil is a major contributor. That said, there are cheaper ways to do things, e.g. recycled steel is a lot cheaper than producing it from iron ore. The main problem with current generation photovoltaic (polycrystalline silicon) cells is that they have a short useful lifetime, although new PV technologies are in development. I believe we currently already have the technology to produce wind and thermal solar power generators that can last essentially indefinitely, with some material and energy input for maintenance, which will greatly reduce their amortized energy cost. And the fuel is free and should last another few billion years ;-)
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