Purdue researchers "perfecting" new hydrogen-generating technology

Those mad scientists at Purdue University seem to think they have something big on their hands, with them now claiming that they're "perfecting" a new hydrogen-generating technology that they first announced earlier this year. According to the researchers, the technology could represent a "pollution-free energy source" for a whole range of applications, with it effectively generating "hydrogen on demand." To do that, the researchers added water to an alloy of aluminum and gallium, which attracts oxygen from the water, letting hydrogen loose in the process. This latest development centers on a new and improved form of the alloy that boasts a higher concentration of aluminum, which apparently allows it to react more rapidly with water to form hydrogen. While the technology is still under " intense investigation," the researchers are planning to detail their findings at the 2nd Energy Nanotechnology International Conference that goes down in Santa Clara, California on September 7th.

[Via TG Daily]

[CharlieX @ Aug 28th 2007 4:59PM]

Pirates love hydrogen

[Matt @ Aug 28th 2007 5:52PM]

Gyarr, der be gold from aluminum!!

[Peter @ Aug 28th 2007 4:59PM]

Is the guy in the middle a pirate as well as a scientist?

[ryantrevisol @ Aug 28th 2007 6:47PM]

Nope, but there's a good reason why the guy on the left is wearing goggles.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Aug 28th 2007 11:57PM]

I have a feeling the Pirate Joke will quickly supersede the Wii, Play Doom, and will it blend one liners in future Engadget postings... Argh!

[raymie @ Aug 28th 2007 5:00PM]

pirate comment in, 3....2....1....

[raymie @ Aug 28th 2007 5:02PM]

damnit i was too late

[alexjag @ Aug 28th 2007 5:01PM]

Pirates are always technologically ahead of everyone else, at least in the technology world.

[ryan @ Aug 28th 2007 5:02PM]

I know it says "react" with water, but this alloy sounds more like a catalyst. Anybody know the details?

[ronh @ Aug 29th 2007 3:20PM]

I don't get it where is the pirate joke?

[Joseph @ Aug 28th 2007 5:03PM]

I am glad to hear this. Cheap and free energy is a good thing... um the reliability of the new technology is a little suspect in my mind however seeing the photo with the man and the eye patch.

[Fred @ Aug 28th 2007 11:16PM]

Free eh? How much energy is expended in mining the bauxite for the aluminum and then how much more is spent refining the aluminum into a useable form so that it can then be alloyed with the gallium to make this happen? You think aluminum is just laying around in chunks like gold waiting to be melted down? How much energy is required to make the gallium?

Any Hydrogen power source requires more energy to create it than it does to then use the hydrogen, no matter how clever the use of the hydrogen.

Hydrogen power is a Don Quixotic sad pursuit.

[evo @ Aug 29th 2007 2:53AM]

Hmm, aluminum just lying around...how about those billions of aluminum cans everyone throws away every year?

[shakman @ Aug 29th 2007 2:53PM]

Fred, you could use the same argument for extracting oil couldn't you?

This is a very exciting find. I hope that this team of pirates is correct. If this alloy is a catalyst for extracting hyrogen from water then I dare say that the amount of energy used in the process of extracting gallium, refining readily available aluminium (which evo correctly points out, is easy to obtain) and processing the alloy would be returned several-fold with the introduction of water to the alloy for fuel.

The beauty of this is that we already know hydrogen is a powerful source of energy and we also know that it is a primary component of one of earth's most abundant resources (H20). Find a catalyst for this and voila! No precious laws of physics broken. We are simply making water a source of fuel thanks to its hydrogen properties.

It's about time we returned to the Leydon Jar line of research before we suck the planet dry of all other available options. This looks like a promising start.

[CharlieX @ Aug 28th 2007 5:04PM]

I wonder if he has a prescription lens for the eye with the patch?

[Gardiner Reynolds @ Aug 28th 2007 5:05PM]

Avast!! There be HydRRRRRogen in that tube.

[alexjag @ Aug 28th 2007 5:09PM]

I'll bet you could accomplish the same thing with ARRRRRRRRgon.

[otto @ Aug 28th 2007 5:09PM]

I'm willing to bet he gets upset when Foreigner's "Double Vision" comes on....

[comrade @ Aug 28th 2007 5:09PM]

We all know that they're really working on ninja repellent.

[BEN! @ Aug 28th 2007 5:51PM]

Damn, I knew I wouldn't be the first to make a pirate comment, but I thought I could at least get in the first ninja comment.

[Gam @ Aug 28th 2007 5:14PM]

when aluminum oxidizes it is coated by a thin layer of oxidation. The oxidation is then halted because the layer keeps the aluminum beneath it from reacting with the air or in this case the water. Somehow the gallium keeps this protective layer from sticking or forming and allows the reaction to continue at a fast rate. The discovery science channel had a segment about this on its Eco-Tech show i believe.

Potentially you could dump a hand full of this alloy in pellet form into a car along with water and create the reaction on demand rather than having to tote around a big ass tank of highly volatile Hydrogen.

[brett.chandler @ Aug 28th 2007 6:40PM]

Any technology that improves the efficiency of isolating hydrogen is promising, in my books. This sounds like an extremely cool idea, but it leads me to a couple of questions:

1) Is there a byproduct? Can it easily/cheaply be "recharged", or at least reused for something else?

2) Just how much energy is expended to produce the alloy? I know aluminium production is EXTREMELY energy intensive. Once all the inputs have been accounted for, what is the real net here?

Just as an aside, I think the best application for wind energy is in electrolysis to sequester hydrogen; it's probably much more usable there than feeding it into the grid. But that's just MY opinion.

[Larry @ Aug 29th 2007 12:33AM]

Brett, using electricity to split water, then recombining it produces half as much power as transmitting the same amount of electricity, putting it into a battery, and producing work from the power in the battery. That's why "hydrogen power" (actually "hydrogen energy storage") is dumb. Electric power is so much more efficient.

[MaxPower @ Aug 28th 2007 7:44PM]

Damn, I had a nice detailed comment, but IE ate it. Here's the summary: The byproduct of this reaction is aluminum oxide, if we assume (best case) Al2O3 is the oxide produced that's .11lb of hydrogen per 1lb of Al. It takes about 6.2 kWH of energy to produce aluminum from Al2O3, and there are alot of steps to get to Al2O3 from what you get out of the ground, but lets ignore that for now and assume aluminum is produced from the byproducts of this reaction. It would take about 3.3 kWH to produce the same amount of hydrogen using electrolysis. Now lets try to use this in a car: lets shoot for a 500 mile round trip; assume 27 mi/lb of hydrogen [source national hydrogen assoc.] that means about 18lb of hydrogen and 166lb of aluminum (~1 cubic foot), and don't forget the 160lb of water (about 2.5 cubic feet). A filling station would have to deliver this order of aluminum and water to a bunch of cars in a reasonable amount of time. I don't see this as practical, and if you say wanted to just change out your aluminum every 3000 miles that would be about 1000lb of aluminum; about 6 cubic feet!!

[Vince @ Aug 28th 2007 10:40PM]

Dude, totally get rid of IE!! Heck even nasty ol' Netscape works better!!

www.mozilla.com/firefox

or go here:

www.mc1171611.com

and the neat little JavaScript module will reroute you to the proper page ;)

[Ryhan @ Aug 29th 2007 12:25AM]

@maxpower

IE apparently has many vulnerabilities too... that's why I use firefox.
But no, IE didn't "eat" your comment; your connection speed is simply too slow. Let me guess, you're using a wireless connection? Still, I believe that IE would have saved it, so when you hit the back button it would pop up again.

Beware of double-posting!

[nih @ Aug 28th 2007 5:14PM]

It's called a monocle, smartguy.

[Derry Quinn @ Aug 28th 2007 5:18PM]

This is like what the guy said in "Jokes with a guitar" on youtube

[hackedbyjoe @ Aug 28th 2007 8:44PM]

Do you have a link?

[Derry Quinn @ Aug 29th 2007 2:48PM]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xifrfej8dkm&nr

[Jinto @ Aug 28th 2007 5:19PM]

About damn time I had my hydrogen powered car.

[lk @ Aug 28th 2007 5:20PM]

Once we run out of oil, we can run out of water. We will have to decide if we would rather drink water or put it in our car to go out.

I know, i know, the world is 2/3 water, but still we cant use it up

[gescamil @ Aug 28th 2007 5:29PM]

the concern is more on fresh water, which is alot less the the 2/3 you are talking about. You can't "use up" water because it get reintroduced into the environment. What you can "use up" in a sense is fresh water, and we're not going to be capable of recycling enough water sooner or later. That's the only concern.

[Mr. B @ Aug 28th 2007 5:42PM]

How exactly would the water be used up? You're drinking the same water dinosaurs pissed in.

[Wun Chiou @ Aug 28th 2007 7:39PM]

When you burn the hydrogen as fuel, you get water back.
2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O

[JLW @ Apr 28th 2008 4:55PM]

People are made up of a lot of water.......just a variation of Soylent Green

[kaybee @ Aug 28th 2007 5:29PM]

More information here:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/08/purdue-research.html

A presentation by the group from April07: (warning PDF)
http://hydrogen.ecn.purdue.edu/2007.05.01-Woodall.pdf

A paper from 1972 whose authors use a similar technique:
http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=406&gTable=japaperimportPre97&gID=48127

It seems like the part of this technology that makes it economically viable, novel, and currently relevant is that they are synthesizing this material with nanoscale dimensions so that the aluminum is efficiently used in the reaction.

[beans @ Aug 28th 2007 5:40PM]

I believe the correct statement is, "Purdue? more like Purdon't!"

Some retard at an ND pep rally said that...yeah, didn't get any laughs there either.

[Mr. B @ Aug 28th 2007 5:40PM]

...an easy efficent way to seperate hydrogen from water could easily be one of the most signfiicant technological advancements of the 21st century. Until then, Hydrogen cars are just a big farce. Electric FTW!

[Tim @ Aug 28th 2007 5:41PM]

The goggles do nothing!

[Frank @ Aug 28th 2007 5:43PM]

well, the guy on the right could use some perfecting...

[Frank @ Aug 28th 2007 5:44PM]

these metal catalyst techniques are really rather boring compared to bio-fuel-cells (containing either isolated enzymes or micro-organisms)

[ttoadish @ Aug 28th 2007 5:51PM]

But wait an aluminum alloy? Aluminum is extracted using electrolysis, where will we get the electricity to do this - oil :p

[shakman @ Aug 29th 2007 3:04PM]

How about.... coal? (one of several obvious answers I could give you aside from oil).

[jkfurr @ Aug 28th 2007 5:56PM]

None of this matters! Some oil company will come along and buy the rights to this technology then shelve it. This will never see the light of day.

[Rod @ Aug 28th 2007 6:06PM]

Nice work guys, scientists discover something revolutionary which could change the world forever, and history will remember the announcement for all of the pirate comments that were posted.

[Evil Closet Monkey @ Aug 28th 2007 6:20PM]

To Your Call Once More We Rally;
Alma Mater Hear Our Praise;
Where The Wabash Spreads Its Valley;
Filled With Joy Our Voices Raise.
Form The Skies In Swelling Echoes
Come The Cheers That Tell The Tale
Of Your Vict'ries And Your Heroes,
Hail Purdue! We Sing All Hail!
Chorus:
Hail, Hail To Old Purdue!
All Hail To Our Old Gold And Black!
Hail, Hail To Old Purdue!
Our Friendship May She Never Lack.
Ever Grateful, Ever True,
Thus We Raise Our Song Anew
Of The Days We've Spent With You,
All Hail Our Own Purdue!

[Griff @ Aug 28th 2007 11:17PM]

Boiler up!

[jaapv @ Aug 28th 2007 6:21PM]

'But wait an aluminum alloy? Aluminum is extracted using electrolysis, where will we get the electricity to do this - oil :p'

Indeed, this is actually the whole problem. Making aluminum back from aluminum oxide costs a lot of energy and is in fact very dirty. I've seen this news-item on physics.org a couple months ago.

Aluminum is a very stable and easy to handle energy carrier, but it is also very heavy. It doesn't do much better then batteries.

[Alex Kwok @ Aug 28th 2007 6:28PM]

Yes it takes a lot of electricity, which is why most (if not all?) generate their own electricity using cheap and clean hydro power. Alcan in British Columbia does exactly that. They built their own dam, and sell us their excess electricity.