Aluminum Powered Generator?
Aluminum Powered Generator?
Sure, but can you say Aluminum three times fast?
hmm... so it's an Aluminium / Aluminium-Oxide fuel cell process.
Sounds similar to the cutting edge Zinc / Zinc-Oxide fuelcell process (powered by concentrated solar heat in Israel).
Or the even more cutting edge Iron Oxide / Water process (did we talk about that here, or was i reading about it elsewhere? the concentrated solar heat powered process with the counter-rotating catalyst rings acting as heat exchangers).
i don't like this. Producing Aluminium from Alimina is one of the most energy intensive metalurgy processes in existance! Aluminium refineries take a STUPENDIUS amount of electrical energy for the electric arc smelting process needed to produce Aluminium from Alumina.
I note they are still using the Hall-Héroult process, which wiki verifies my concerns as \"Aluminium electrolysis with the Hall-Héroult process consumes a lot of energy\".
Oh well, i guess even with this, they still say it works though! who am i to argue, heh.
yay.
although, i have no ★■◆●ing idea what they are trying to say here:
\"After recycling both the aluminum oxide back to aluminum and the inert gallium-indium-tin alloy only 60 times, the cost of producing energy both as hydrogen and heat using the technology would be reduced to 10 cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with other energy technologies,\"
This is a BATTERY technology, it's only for storing energy in the form of these aluminium alloy bricks. Aluminium does not occur naturally, to both produce it and recharge it (same process) takes a lot of ELECTRICAL energy, where is it going to come from? This process does NOT produce ANY net energy.
That 10cents per kilowatt hour is not the price to produce energy, but the price to charge your battery. That seems like a kinda insane price to me - also i'm rather annoyed that this article is trying to pass this technology off as an energy producer technology.
It's just the \"10 cents per kilowatt hour\" thing that gripes me, that is totally misrepresentive, such figures are only ever used to compare energy PRODUCERS, not batterys.
If i've got this wrong, someone pls correct me.
Sounds similar to the cutting edge Zinc / Zinc-Oxide fuelcell process (powered by concentrated solar heat in Israel).
Or the even more cutting edge Iron Oxide / Water process (did we talk about that here, or was i reading about it elsewhere? the concentrated solar heat powered process with the counter-rotating catalyst rings acting as heat exchangers).
i don't like this. Producing Aluminium from Alimina is one of the most energy intensive metalurgy processes in existance! Aluminium refineries take a STUPENDIUS amount of electrical energy for the electric arc smelting process needed to produce Aluminium from Alumina.
I note they are still using the Hall-Héroult process, which wiki verifies my concerns as \"Aluminium electrolysis with the Hall-Héroult process consumes a lot of energy\".
Oh well, i guess even with this, they still say it works though! who am i to argue, heh.
yay.
although, i have no ★■◆●ing idea what they are trying to say here:
\"After recycling both the aluminum oxide back to aluminum and the inert gallium-indium-tin alloy only 60 times, the cost of producing energy both as hydrogen and heat using the technology would be reduced to 10 cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with other energy technologies,\"
This is a BATTERY technology, it's only for storing energy in the form of these aluminium alloy bricks. Aluminium does not occur naturally, to both produce it and recharge it (same process) takes a lot of ELECTRICAL energy, where is it going to come from? This process does NOT produce ANY net energy.
That 10cents per kilowatt hour is not the price to produce energy, but the price to charge your battery. That seems like a kinda insane price to me - also i'm rather annoyed that this article is trying to pass this technology off as an energy producer technology.
It's just the \"10 cents per kilowatt hour\" thing that gripes me, that is totally misrepresentive, such figures are only ever used to compare energy PRODUCERS, not batterys.
If i've got this wrong, someone pls correct me.
its not an electrical battery, it sounds like a hydrogen battery.
There is plenty of aluminum that's been smelted and is staged for recycling. Recycling Aluminum is simple. Gas jets are used to slag it down. And aluminum ore occurs naturally. The refined alloy you're thinking of does not of course. NO metal does for that matter.10 cents a KH is great. I pay Way more than that on my power bill.
Go back and read the whole thing a couple of times.
There is plenty of aluminum that's been smelted and is staged for recycling. Recycling Aluminum is simple. Gas jets are used to slag it down. And aluminum ore occurs naturally. The refined alloy you're thinking of does not of course. NO metal does for that matter.10 cents a KH is great. I pay Way more than that on my power bill.
Go back and read the whole thing a couple of times.
Technology reporting has a (typically proton membrane) hydrogen fuel-cell bias though. When they report on sources of Hydrogen - they essentially mean that the hydrogen will be used with fuelcells to produce electricity - as a battery.
Yes i know this isn't guarenteed, hydrogan CAN be used in other ways. But it's still energy, and it's only being stored (not produced) and that makes it a battery (more specifically it's part of a fuel-cell system, as it's a way to store hydrogen which will be fed into a fuel-cell. There is a slight semantic difference between \"Batterys\" and \"Fuelcells\" i'm trying to respect).
& the Hall-Héroult process was specifically mentioned in the article. They are using it, they arn't using gas jets.
Turning Aluminium-Oxide into Aluminium is quite different to just melting down (recycling) Aluminium metal - it requires much more power (Aluminium melts easily, but removing oxygen is hard and requires a LOT more energy - they use large electrical-arc furnaces.... not just electric - electric ARC!).
Yes i know this isn't guarenteed, hydrogan CAN be used in other ways. But it's still energy, and it's only being stored (not produced) and that makes it a battery (more specifically it's part of a fuel-cell system, as it's a way to store hydrogen which will be fed into a fuel-cell. There is a slight semantic difference between \"Batterys\" and \"Fuelcells\" i'm trying to respect).
& the Hall-Héroult process was specifically mentioned in the article. They are using it, they arn't using gas jets.
Turning Aluminium-Oxide into Aluminium is quite different to just melting down (recycling) Aluminium metal - it requires much more power (Aluminium melts easily, but removing oxygen is hard and requires a LOT more energy - they use large electrical-arc furnaces.... not just electric - electric ARC!).
no no.. you miss understood me and I wasn't clear enough. I mean using recycled aluminum for fuelor rather material to build the batteries out of rather than using freshly refined ore. The expense is less in that case.
I don't think the article held the same respect for semantics that you are. Although in the strictest sense, the word battery come from the Latin root \"battuere\" which means to beat; and through the French watering down of the word we get \"baton\". Not sure how it got associated with the electrical batteries we use today.
In either case, batteries and fuel cells can be used interchangeably for all intensive purposes.
I don't think the article held the same respect for semantics that you are. Although in the strictest sense, the word battery come from the Latin root \"battuere\" which means to beat; and through the French watering down of the word we get \"baton\". Not sure how it got associated with the electrical batteries we use today.
In either case, batteries and fuel cells can be used interchangeably for all intensive purposes.
Roid,re-read the article... the aluminum is alloyed with some metals and the chemical process of the fuel cell breaks down the alloy and produces the hydrogen gas and pure alumina. The recycling is when the alumina is turned back into fuel, ie, re-alloyed.
So, we start with scrap aluminum, add 5 percent alloy that is made of the metals gallium, indium and tin, cool the mix quickly, then generate hydrogen while purifying the alumina.
So, we start with scrap aluminum, add 5 percent alloy that is made of the metals gallium, indium and tin, cool the mix quickly, then generate hydrogen while purifying the alumina.
PhysOrg wrote:When immersed in water, the alloy splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, which immediately reacts with the aluminum to produce aluminum oxide, also called alumina, which can be recycled back into aluminum. Recycling aluminum from nearly pure alumina is less expensive than mining the aluminum-containing ore bauxite, making the technology more competitive with other forms of energy production, Woodall said.
Very few procces hatch mature, or economical. Look at the steps recording technology went through, first we had some finger painting on cave walls, then paper, then sound on a cylinder, now we have Blu-Ray. 
It sounds like a good step forward to me. Do you remeber when batteries were these big paper cylinders, with binding posts at the top and they always leaked?
It sounds like a good step forward to me. Do you remeber when batteries were these big paper cylinders, with binding posts at the top and they always leaked?
But it's still not an energy producer. The expense is less, yeah. But then it's simply a battery made outof recycled materials, which will be recycled again. I think you'd negate any energy savings pretty quick, since the Hall-Héroult process may use more energy than the initial mining of alumina in the first place (big call)! And this has to be done every time the battery is recharged, again and again. It's very wasteful, when there are other competing technologies that don't need to waste so much energy.
I think i see what you're saying though - our society probably does produce an amount of waste refined aluminium. If we're not already using it, we may as well turn them into batterys and then throw out the aluminium-oxide \"ash\" afterwards, instead of throwing out the aluminium. It's like squeezing that last bit of energy outof something before discarding it.
(and yeah, as you say, it's probabaly best to not throw out the ash either - but use it again at the expense of more energy (just not quite as much as if it were mined again))
The batterys are supposed to be rechargable (or at least recyclable into new batterys), so
My main concern is that it's very energy intensive to recycle/recharge them. I don't see how it can compete with less energy intensive hydrogen \"battery\" (just storage) processes i mentioned in my first post, like zinc.
I suppose one of the advantages is that, if i've read the article right, the aluminium process doesn't need heat to RELEASE hydrogen. You just put the brick straight into water at room temp (i'm assuming this, simply because they didn't mention any heat). Whereas with Zinc you have to heat it upto 200C or so for it to react with water and release hydrogen - it's an added complexity.
Coz they call em fuelcells, i find it handy to imagine they call them this because their operation is familure to us in the form of fueled engines: Fuel goes into the engine - engine makes power. You never have to recharge the engine itself, the engine is like the fuelcell.
But an engine (or fuelcell) and fueltank, sealed into one unit, could be collectively called a battery.
Fuelcells and hydrogen are like Engines and gasoline. It's how i like to think of them
edit: Oh and WillyP, i understand the process - Aluminium mining was big in the state i grew up in, and i learned about how they smelt it in an advanced welding course i took a few years back.
I'm comparing the process to other processes.
Maybe i'm not writing my posts well enough.
I think i see what you're saying though - our society probably does produce an amount of waste refined aluminium. If we're not already using it, we may as well turn them into batterys and then throw out the aluminium-oxide \"ash\" afterwards, instead of throwing out the aluminium. It's like squeezing that last bit of energy outof something before discarding it.
(and yeah, as you say, it's probabaly best to not throw out the ash either - but use it again at the expense of more energy (just not quite as much as if it were mined again))
The batterys are supposed to be rechargable (or at least recyclable into new batterys), so
My main concern is that it's very energy intensive to recycle/recharge them. I don't see how it can compete with less energy intensive hydrogen \"battery\" (just storage) processes i mentioned in my first post, like zinc.
I suppose one of the advantages is that, if i've read the article right, the aluminium process doesn't need heat to RELEASE hydrogen. You just put the brick straight into water at room temp (i'm assuming this, simply because they didn't mention any heat). Whereas with Zinc you have to heat it upto 200C or so for it to react with water and release hydrogen - it's an added complexity.
Coz they call em fuelcells, i find it handy to imagine they call them this because their operation is familure to us in the form of fueled engines: Fuel goes into the engine - engine makes power. You never have to recharge the engine itself, the engine is like the fuelcell.
But an engine (or fuelcell) and fueltank, sealed into one unit, could be collectively called a battery.
Fuelcells and hydrogen are like Engines and gasoline. It's how i like to think of them
edit: Oh and WillyP, i understand the process - Aluminium mining was big in the state i grew up in, and i learned about how they smelt it in an advanced welding course i took a few years back.
I'm comparing the process to other processes.
Maybe i'm not writing my posts well enough.
You can call them whatever you like, but the point of the article (stated in the first paragraph) is:
PhysOrg wrote: Purdue University engineers have developed a new aluminum-rich alloy that produces hydrogen by splitting water and is economically competitive with conventional fuels for transportation and power generation.
"We now have an economically viable process for producing hydrogen on-demand for vehicles, electrical generating stations and other applications," said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.
WillyP, i understand the process the article is talking about, and i am familure with Aluminium - Aluminium mining was big in the state i grew up in as a young kid, the mining process was something we were exposed to. And i learned about how they smelt it in an advanced welding course i took a few years back. It's still quite fresh.
I'm comparing the process to other processes - i follow this stuff a bit, it's something i'm interested in.
Maybe i'm not writing my posts well enough.
(Alumina is Aluminium Oxide, if that's confusing anyone. I prefer to call it Aluminium Oxide)
I'm comparing the process to other processes - i follow this stuff a bit, it's something i'm interested in.
Maybe i'm not writing my posts well enough.
(Alumina is Aluminium Oxide, if that's confusing anyone. I prefer to call it Aluminium Oxide)
Oh man, that means this article is indeed a real problem.
See... if this article is making people think this technology is something it isn't.
terribleterrible
Anyway, so i'm trying to put it into perspective for ppl
Fuel-cell electric cars are like a holy grail in environmentally friendly car technology - because Hydrogen has a highest energy density than any currently existing battery (it's lighter). But there are still a few problems they are working on:
(Hydrogen has it's problems though - it takes about 4x as much energy as a normal battery, it's quite inefficient. But it's still good coz it's more energy dense than any other battery. Eventually battery tech will catch up though, and we won't use Hydrogen anymore.)
One problem is that current fuelcells have some platinum components, an incredibly expensive and rare element. They are working on substitutes.
Another problem is that Hydrogen is difficult to store. You can keep it in a pressurised tank, but they are expensive, (arguably) dangerous, and hard to fill.
So, technologies are being developed for alternate ways to store hydrogen. One way is to use water and some chemical that will react with water to produce hydrogen. You can get water from anywhere - so you only really need to carry around the chemical. You just react the chemical with the water - on demand - when you need hydrogen.
One of these chemicals is Zinc. When you react Zinc with Water (at 200C iirc) it turns into Hydrogen and Zinc Oxide. Then you can reverse the process by refining the Zinc Oxide back into Zinc again. Zinc is safe and easy to stockpile, so you could easily stockpile safe \"fuel\" this way.
Aluminium is another of these Chemicals. It seems that it reacts with water to produce hydrogen as well - but it's natural layer of Alumium oxide on the surface (just air will create this layer, and because this layer is so stable - this is what gives Aluminium it's natural corrosion resistance). What this article is talking about is an alloying technology they have discovered that breks the stability of the oxide layer - so that Aluminium will continually \"rust\" all the way through. This way, it will keep \"rusting\" all the way through (turning into Aluminium Oxide - \"Alumina\") producing Hydrogen the whole way, until there is no more unrusted Aluminium left.
The problem is that to turn Alumium Oxide back into Aluminium takes a COPIOUS amount of energy - whereas to turn Zinc Oxide back into Zinc only takes 2000C or so (iirc) - which is a lot less. They can actually do it with concentrated solar radiation - a big magnifying glass.
Whereas the Aluminium smelting process is so powerful it needs Electric ARCs - effectively bolts of lightning.
So, you can see 2 processes are similar, and it seems that the Zinc process is the better alternative as it uses a lot less energy.
It's a cool discovery, but i simply can't see how it could be competitive. It's constrained by the Aluminium smelting process
.
See... if this article is making people think this technology is something it isn't.
terribleterrible
Anyway, so i'm trying to put it into perspective for ppl
Fuel-cell electric cars are like a holy grail in environmentally friendly car technology - because Hydrogen has a highest energy density than any currently existing battery (it's lighter). But there are still a few problems they are working on:
(Hydrogen has it's problems though - it takes about 4x as much energy as a normal battery, it's quite inefficient. But it's still good coz it's more energy dense than any other battery. Eventually battery tech will catch up though, and we won't use Hydrogen anymore.)
One problem is that current fuelcells have some platinum components, an incredibly expensive and rare element. They are working on substitutes.
Another problem is that Hydrogen is difficult to store. You can keep it in a pressurised tank, but they are expensive, (arguably) dangerous, and hard to fill.
So, technologies are being developed for alternate ways to store hydrogen. One way is to use water and some chemical that will react with water to produce hydrogen. You can get water from anywhere - so you only really need to carry around the chemical. You just react the chemical with the water - on demand - when you need hydrogen.
One of these chemicals is Zinc. When you react Zinc with Water (at 200C iirc) it turns into Hydrogen and Zinc Oxide. Then you can reverse the process by refining the Zinc Oxide back into Zinc again. Zinc is safe and easy to stockpile, so you could easily stockpile safe \"fuel\" this way.
Aluminium is another of these Chemicals. It seems that it reacts with water to produce hydrogen as well - but it's natural layer of Alumium oxide on the surface (just air will create this layer, and because this layer is so stable - this is what gives Aluminium it's natural corrosion resistance). What this article is talking about is an alloying technology they have discovered that breks the stability of the oxide layer - so that Aluminium will continually \"rust\" all the way through. This way, it will keep \"rusting\" all the way through (turning into Aluminium Oxide - \"Alumina\") producing Hydrogen the whole way, until there is no more unrusted Aluminium left.
The problem is that to turn Alumium Oxide back into Aluminium takes a COPIOUS amount of energy - whereas to turn Zinc Oxide back into Zinc only takes 2000C or so (iirc) - which is a lot less. They can actually do it with concentrated solar radiation - a big magnifying glass.
Whereas the Aluminium smelting process is so powerful it needs Electric ARCs - effectively bolts of lightning.
So, you can see 2 processes are similar, and it seems that the Zinc process is the better alternative as it uses a lot less energy.
It's a cool discovery, but i simply can't see how it could be competitive. It's constrained by the Aluminium smelting process
.
A few years ago I did some work for a large chemical international - they were promoting a chemical process they had developed that increased yield from aluminium smelters by about 5 to 8 percent on average (iirc) - which drastically increased the amount of aluminium produced for the amount of energy put in.
Granted that's not a huge percentage - but the improvement in yield over a year was significant and it saved smelters millions in energy costs.
So don't write it this new technology off just yet Roid - there are new & emerging technologies that may be able to help reduce the energy input required
to create the aluminium alloy this process relies upon.
Granted that's not a huge percentage - but the improvement in yield over a year was significant and it saved smelters millions in energy costs.
So don't write it this new technology off just yet Roid - there are new & emerging technologies that may be able to help reduce the energy input required
to create the aluminium alloy this process relies upon.