Clean energy claim: Hydrogen breakthrough -- aluminum in your car tank

[Guest guest]

[if you think hybrids and bio-diesel are cool, wait till you read this. The

best news is, I wrote to Professor Woodall at Purdue University and he

responded that his invention will work with sea water so there will be no

need for expensive desalination.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clean energy claim: Aluminum in your car tank

 

 

 

Professor says Energy Department 'egos' blocking hydrogen breakthrough

 

 

 

MSNBC

 

May 18, 2007

 

 

 

A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says

he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy.

 

Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an aluminum

alloy to extract hydrogen from water - a process that he thinks could

replace gasoline as well as its pollutants and emissions tied to global

warming.

 

But Woodall says there's one big hitch: " Egos " at the U.S. Department of

Energy, a key funding source for energy research, " are holding up the

revolution. "

 

Woodall says the method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen

- two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy.

 

" The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you

need when you need it, " he said in a statement released by Purdue this week.

 

So instead of having to fill up at a station, hydrogen would be made inside

vehicles in tanks about the same size as today's gasoline tanks. An internal

reaction in those tanks would create hydrogen from water and 350 pounds

worth of special pellets.

 

" No extra room would be needed, " Woodall said, " and the added weight would

be the equivalent of an extra passenger, albeit a pretty large extra

passenger. "

 

The hydrogen would then power an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell

stack.

 

" It's a simple matter to convert ordinary internal combustion engines to run

on hydrogen, " Woodall said. " All you have to do is replace the gasoline fuel

injector with a hydrogen injector. "

 

How it works

Here's how it all happens: Hydrogen is generated spontaneously when water is

added to pellets of the alloy, which is made of aluminum and a metal called

gallium.

 

" When water is added to the pellets, the aluminum in the solid alloy reacts

because it has a strong attraction to the oxygen in the water, " Woodall

said. " No toxic fumes are produced. "

 

This reaction splits the oxygen and hydrogen contained in water, releasing

hydrogen in the process.

 

An electrical and computer engineering professor, Woodall first discovered

the basic process while working as a researcher in the semiconductor

industry in 1967.

 

" I was cleaning a crucible containing liquid alloys of gallium and

aluminum, " Woodall said. " When I added water to this alloy - talk about a

discovery - there was a violent poof. I went to my office and worked out the

reaction in a couple of hours to figure out what had happened. When aluminum

atoms in the liquid alloy come into contact with water, they react,

splitting the water and producing hydrogen and aluminum oxide. "

 

That research led to advances in cell phones, solar cells, optical-fiber

communications and light-emitting diodes, and earned Woodall the 2001

National Medal of Technology from President Bush.

 

In recent years, Woodall built a team of Purdue electrical, mechanical,

chemical and aeronautical engineering students to fine-tune the process.

 

The Purdue Research Foundation holds title to the primary patent. And a

startup company, AlGalCo LLC, has received a license for the exclusive right

to commercialize the process.

 

But there are some speed bumps on the highway to hydrogen.

 

With internal combustion engines, the cost of recycling the aluminum oxide

must be reduced to make the process competitive with gasoline at $3 a

gallon.

 

" Right now it costs more than $1 a pound to buy aluminum, and, at that

price, you can't deliver a product at the equivalent of $3 per gallon of

gasoline, " Woodall said.

 

That cost could come way down, he figures, if the recycling is done with

electricity from nuclear power plants, wind turbines or even solar power

plants if economically viable. The aluminum oxide and gallium would be

shipped to such plants, using electrolysis to break the oxide back down to

aluminum, Woodall said, " and we start the cycle all over again. "

 

If used in fuel cells, the process would be economically competitive with

gasoline, Woodall noted. " Using pure hydrogen, fuel cell systems run at an

overall efficiency of 75 percent, compared to 40 percent using hydrogen

extracted from fossil fuels and with 25 percent for internal combustion

engines, " Woodall said.

 

But the fuel cell systems themselves are still much more expensive and less

reliable than internal combustion engines. " When and if fuel cells become

economically viable, our method would compete with gasoline at $3 per gallon

even if aluminum costs more than a dollar per pound, " Woodall said.

 

Funding speed bump

For Woodall, the biggest speed bump lies elsewhere. " The egos of program

managers at DOE are holding up the revolution, " he told msnbc.com.

 

" Remember that Einstein was a patent examiner and had no funding for his

1905 miracle year, " Woodall added. " He did it on his own time. If he had

been a professor at a university in the U.S. today and put in a proposal to

develop the theory of special relativity it would have been summarily

rejected.

 

" Likewise, since I won my National Medal of Technology for compound

semiconductors and not making hydrogen, DOE does not recognize me as a

member of the club. " As evidence, Woodall said DOE last summer rejected two

" pre-proposals " for funding, " i.e., I was not invited to send in full

proposals on my work. "

 

Patrick Davis, who heads the DOE hydrogen program, said he could not

immediately comment. " We are in the middle of our annual program review

(offsite, with 1000 attendees), so a vetted response through our press

office is not possible until next week, " he told msnbc.com in an e-mail.

 

Woodall said that his " bottom line " is that " it will take me a little longer

to launch the revolution. "

 

Msnbc.com will update this story with DOE's response when it is available.

 

 

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700750/