Army discovers new energy source

[windmill]

http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?article=3036

Spontaneous dissociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen with an aluminum powder nanomaterial. Researchers claim 220 kilowatts worth of power after three minutes of reaction from 1 kilogram of powder.

[ladajo]

Interesting. I wonder how hard it is to make the powder, and what kind of residues are left in the reaction chamber.

This is along the lines of dropping a sodium tab into water.

[JoeP]

This is along the lines of dropping a sodium tab into water.

That's what I'm thinking. The energy to split water must come from somewhere; the energy necessary to create the nano powder. And the powder will degrade so that there is no net energy gain (e.g. by burning the gasses for example).

Still, if it real, could be a way to store energy in a chemical and/or mechanical. Like the sodium tab.

[Giorgio]

It seems an amazing breakthrough if confirmed.
My only concern it that the article claim 220 KW of ENERGY in less than 3 minutes..... so is not really clear what they really want to say.
I wish they would learn to express ENERGY and POWER in a proper and correct way when writing such articles.
It would make reading more enjoyable and rise less doubts.

Let's wait till the first scientific paper release, it will hopefully clear any doubts and maybe also give some cost indication on the production of 1 kg of this stuff.

[paperburn1]

Who cares about net plus energy,It would make a a heck of a battery

[ladajo]

At 1.2kw/sec, it would be a really hot battery!

[krenshala]

I wonder if this would be something where combining thermal-to-electric, in addition to the fuel-cell nature, would be worthwhile. The article states its an exothermic reaction, and one part says not a catalyst (which implies O2 is getting bound up in the Al powder) but another part mentions recombining the H2 and O2 (which implies the Al powder is a catalyst).

Of course it was written by PA, and talks about water being made up of two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen ... so any details need to be taken with at least a grain of salt, apparently.

[ladajo]

one part says not a catalyst (which implies O2 is getting bound up in the Al powder) but another part mentions recombining the H2 and O2 (which implies the Al powder is a catalyst)

Hence my question on the reaction's residue. Too little information at this point to really understand what they have. Piques the interest though.

[Giorgio]

I am pretty sure that the O2 is bonded to the Al2 to form Al2O3 powder and leave a pure H2 stream, else you would have a gas mixture of O2 and H2 with little to no practical use.

When they mention that the H2 recombine with the O2 to form H2O they mean that this happens into the fuel cell where the O2 is supplied from air.

[hanelyp]

- Aluminum - Air fuel cells were being researched back in the 1970s. What I recall of semi-technical articles from the time, they used aluminum plates which needed to be replaced once consumed.

- Except for the properties of the adhering oxide, aluminum would react with water much like sodium. A fine aluminum powder made under conditions that prevented the oxide from forming on the exposed metal could react near explosively when introduced to water. This same powder would spontaneously rapidly combust on exposure to air, making it a dense but dangerous chemical energy source.

[alexjrgreen]

They're lucky they didn't injure themselves...

Shandong to Dead Workers: Blame Yourselves.

and even this:

Twin Towers brought down by molten aluminum, says scientist