Hydrogen from Aluminum

Purdue's research is interesting but needs to be filed under the "If frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their a**** every time they jump" folder.

Purdue estimates that, if they get cars running on fuel cells, and if they can get their process sorted out, they can produce 2 kwh of useable energy + 2 kwh heat for every lb of aluminum. Unfortunately, it takes about 6 kwh to run an efficient cell to make aluminum and then you've got the mineral costs, and the transportation costs and the Gallium costs and so on. Basically, they lose about $.75 on every lb but they make it up in the excitement of not producing any Gallium domestically, i.e., none, zilch, zip, nada. You think an oil shortage is bad - many think Gallium has at most a decade or two left at current use levels.

Sorry, no cigar. The tough part about being an engineer is that you actually have to count stuff and figure out efficiencies. No magic.

This comment is way off topic and Purdue has vetted the cost of electricity of their system to $.09/kwh! The technology is not all about cars. It is about developing renewable sources of energy that is clean.

HH, You can control the reaction with a simple device with parts from Home Depot or Lowes. Start on a very small scale as this is a highly exothermic reaction and is quite dangerous. This is not electrolysis and the backyard culture. This is real science. I do not want to discourage you or quell your enthusiasm in any way, but this is not for start up to the finish line in one giant leap. Remember Jurrasic Park? Silly, but you get the idea.

Check the patents of Anderson [late 1990's] and Goebel [2007] as they used hydraulics to control the liquid contact with the solids. You will need to do some serious homework as it has taken me years to develop my reactor technology we are close to bringing to market. Also, look up the Cornish generator as a way to control this reaction.

If it were not for the dreamers we would still be riding on horseback! Keep it up and welcome. I am new too.

.

Using Aluminum makes it not renewable. The first thing that's going to happen should this technology by applied on a large scale, is that the Al prices will increase by an order of magnitude (see corn and ethanol, another debacle). And all will deflate like a baloon. By the way, have you checked the costs of making a SCF of H using Al-NaOH reaction? Not what Purdue said, but using market prices for ingredients. But, as Al Gore would have said, the discussion is off topic... for as long as you don't agree with me...

If it were not for the dreamers we would still be riding on horseback! You are right! Where we many times fail, is making the difference between dreamers and lunatics. I am not saying this is the case... but is kind of difficult to get grant money today unless you come up with some aberration about renewable energy sources.

Well, no, the reply was not off topic. Let me be clear about my positions.

I am all in favor of cheaper, cleaner energy.

Hydrogen is not a renewable energy source. It is only a means of storing/transporting energy.

Electricity in the US does not cost $0.09 kwh^-1. The current commercial cost is closer to $0.11.

If you are going to contribute to the solution, rather than be a dreamer, you have to learn and accept hard facts. I try to check commodity prices every few days (I used to do it every day till our local newspaper (?) decided to drop that as no longer newsworthy). Were it not for the disastrous economic situation, we would have a world-wide aluminum shortfall this year and the price would be perhaps $1.50 lb^-1. There are lots of good dreams for energy production, but the truth is that somebody else has to actually make those work.

Ok enough. With all due respect, the reason i said it was off topic is the man was asking a technical question, his first, at that, and you all gang up on him and tell him the technology is garbage instead of attempting to offer a technical answer. You want to blog? Blog.

No one said that hydrogen was a renewable source of energy. Aluminum is a renewable source of material that can be used to split water to produce hydrogen. Period.

The economics are a different matter and I will not debate them on this technical forum. You want to debate them elsewhere, name the place and I will bring all my data now that you have thrown down the gauntlet in an area that I have spent decades of intense research. Does it take more energy to refine Al2O3 to make Aluminum to make Hydrogen from water to make energy? Yes, but that is not the whole story. I am starting to wonder if some of you work for big oil. Perhaps?

Cheap shot.

My process uses NaOH to react the Al with water.

It is completely true that the Purdue technology uses [Ga, Sn, In] in a 95/5 alloy and when they recycle it [40 times] the cost is minimal. Hence the vetted cost of electricity of 9 cents per KWH is true with their recent developments.

Did you know that Gallium is available in mass quantities during the refining process of Bauxite? The fact is no one has ever paid any attention to it and it the cost can be minimized with minimal modifications if we ever get back to mining and refining bauxite.

HH there was a post mentioned above where this was covered in detail. i did not realize the post was mentioned it was mine. Thank you for that Milo

HH, keep the faith and do not let the cynics steal your dream!

You need to understand we get various people showing up, claiming science just doesn't understand & that you can run your car on water, making all sorts of wild efficiency claims....

Then someone using Happy Hydrogen as a handle, trying to take us one more time down the primrose path.

Economic viability is a key point for any technology & certainly open for discussion here.

OK it's a rough room, welcome

Using hydrogen as a transportation fuel is going to require a unique infrastructure. Stationary applications would be easier. Redirecting resources is always going to be problematic. Increasing efficiency is more likely to reduce our dependence on the middle east for energy, than a process that is a net energy loser.

A Challenge? I doubt it.

In this corner :

W3ig Associate
Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Valrico,FL

Posts: 31

And in this:

TVP45 Guru
Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 2567

Good Answers: 51

Check the creds.

W3IG just arrived, has 31 posts, 0 listed good answers, and is an associate.

TVP45 has been here almost two years, has 51 good answers in that time, and is a Guru. (Anyone ever calculate the AVERAGE number of posts it takes to get 51 GA's? And TVP45 is NOT merely an average contributor!!)

And we the engineering community decided that TVP45 is a Guru (after all, it IS GA's along with activity that make ones creds!)

W3IG, you MAY know your stuff, but no one is flexing muscles like you. And at present, in the brain race, you're in last place, on the outside, while TVP45 is in the Pole position. Establish some cred before you start trying to tell US how big, mean, and wonderful you are! Brute force loses in any intellectual pursuit!!

Micah

What are you 12 years old? Grow up and stop playing super geek games! You are way out of your league on this topic. Want to drop your shorts and show me how big you unit is next? Get over yourself. Go look at my post on refractory technologies or something else and get back to me. As if everyone uses the rating system to measure the worth of the contribution. i did not see anyone take me up on my offer. Check out the post by Milo. This is my last post on this topic. I feed my family in this and other businesses.

Do not bother. take it off line if you wish to match wits and be prepared.

I doubt the GURUs feel the need to be defended by the liked of you. trying to tag on to their success and hard make you look like as a$$ licker

Never argue with Fools in public

Whimper. Whimper.

Nope. But as my Two-Docs father said, all a doctorate proves is that your stuck to it.

And I wonder. Does it seem ironic that YOU said "threw down the gauntlet" and proceeded to list your accomplishments, as a means of shutting off TVP45, and now accuse ME of being 12 years old?

Nope, I wasn't ass-licking TVP45. I have too much respect for him, having read HIS posts, AND his GA's, already.

Yours, not so much! Got some? Show 'em.

But, nope, won't pull my britches down for you, either. YOU might get excited that way. Us guys would just be grossed out.

Blink, The system proposed by Purdue just happened to coincide with the timing of our the release of our system and we planned to use the scrap Al that is piled up and not making it to the recycling centers. It might if people saw the value.

There would be no need for infrastructure as these reactors can be built for minimal cost and can be put on a remote desert highway at a self serve pump. GM had the plans to build the VOLT with an $1800 PEM fuel cell and use a 10,000 PSI storage tank.

Granted the idea of a 10,000 psi tank on a car scares me, but I can keep an open mind as a scientist. i am sure the idea of a gasoline tank was unsettling to many in the beginning. Anyone remember compact cars from the 70's exploding from rear end collisions? Also, PEM fuel cell technology is far from perfect, but at least they were willing to try something that was new that would get us off fossil and harmful emissions.

The cost of clean fuel may be more than we are willing to pay at the moment. When gas was $4/gallon, this was not so far fetched. Do you want to be ready when we are get there again? Do you want to be held held hostage by big oil forever? I do not. I also do not want to send my children to fight a bigger war when they are of age.

Electrolysis to help get a complete burn in ICE makes perfect sense and you reduce emissions. You are using the alternator which is using the HP to spin anyway. You should get something from it. Why not add the 2h2O2 to the air/fuel mix and dial back the fuel and increase efficiency? Would I use electrolysis to produce 2H2O2 as a fuel? NO. It makes no sense. But I would do use my alternator to do it as it is already part of my system.

As I am in business and tried to help a new user, I have already consumed more time on this topic than I can afford. When we send out our press releases I will gladly post the links. It is a shame that his question was never addressed which was "how do i control this reaction?"

The reaction between aluminium and caustic soda is violently exothermic. The products are hydrogen gas and sodium aluminate. Having watched this reaction only once the best advice from a scale-up and reaction control perspective is "DON'T DO IT, ETHEL!"

To W3ig and all of you that have answered my question, I am extremely grateful especially as this was my very FIRST post. I will take your advice and not try this at home. I actually work at a real lab and have a PhD in Electrical Engineering. This topic has been extremely fascinating and has captured my attention for quite some time. Knowing that my colleagues at GE claim to be close to a solution in electrolysis, I was just doing research on the chemical reaction possibilities.

I have not made a single post since asking the question and feel like the high school geek that got beat up by the football team just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was told what a great forum this was and how helpful it would be and how wonderful and kind the members are, etc.

I am being accused of all sorts of things. Leading you all down a primrose path, etc. Again, all I did was ask a question. Forgive me if I started a battle of wits between the regulars, although it was very informative and provided very useful information.

Should I be concerned about asking questions on topics in my own field of expertise? Will I get the same sort of treatment? I guess i will give it one more try.

Thanks for trying to those who did their best to help. I suppose I should change my handle for starters. God bless you ALL

HH,

Welcome. It's not at all personal. You're in the midst of some very senior, very good engineers. We argue all the time. We've like the world's oldest, permanent, floating Critical Design Review. If you have been following the challenge question, it looked like Roger Pink and Physicist were gonna start throwing thunderbolts. Then they resolved it and went back to nice. That's the way engineers talk. It's a tough room. But, you get a chance to talk and most of us, even if we disagree with what you say, will immediately jump in if somebody makes a personal attack against you. Post again and tell us about your alternative energy work, though expect some to pick it apart. Keep it between the ditches and come back, hear?

You seem to feel that your treatment here has been lacking in some way -- although the posts appear to me to be aimed at helping you. I wonder if you think that CR4 is like Peswiki.com, where almost all ideas, including free energy scams, are treated completely uncritically and frauds are promoted, rather than discouraged. Stanley Meyer, a convicted fraud, is treated as a hero there.

Engineers, by nature and training, are skeptics. It is essential that we always ask "What could go wrong." For this reason, systems are designed with large safety factors, and (for instance) design loads are calculated based upon the absolute maximum that is likely to be seen in service. Even then, additional safety factors are added. Thus, we have, for example, aerobatic class airplanes built for 6G loads, utility class planes built for 3.8G's and airliners built for much lower values -- so low, that people like me start to get nervous in severe turbulence... and so low that in a 60 degree banked turn at constant altitude, you are flying right at the design limit (fortunately, there is a 1.5 safety factor). (60 degrees is very steep and rarely used bank, but is the bank used, per the flight manual, on several aircraft during an emergency descent in response to depressurization.) (Some might say that the 2G limit on airliners is too low -- and there have been a few structural failures -- but only very very few. Through billions of dollars of extensive and thorough analyses, the low standard remains. This is the tedious highly-analytical stuff of engineering. Frankly, some of it can get a little grizzly, when you have to assign a dollar value to a life, to decide whether it is better to leave things as they are, or spend more money and make things safer.)

So we are doing what engineers do, pointing out dangers, implausibilities, misconceptions, running the numbers in our heads, etc.

We tend to be skeptical and analytical, because we can otherwise kill people with our designs. Therefore, you can imagine that some things seem highly implausible to us. For example, your claim to find hydrogen production from aluminum in NaOH to be "extremely fascinating", despite it being a reaction of which every high school chemistry student is well aware, seems, at first glance at least, odd. (You claim to be a PhD in EE. How did you get into engineering school without a basic understanding of the sciences?) In the 1960's, homemakers followed this advice: "Once in every week, Drano in every drain." They routinely used the reaction you are so fascinated by... the same reaction that W3ig has been promoting as "renewable" in a very strange usage of that word. Those with a scientific bent do not (typically) find the various active-metals-in-water experiments "fascinating"... they are fun to do, and can be violent, but it's stuff we all did many years ago in high school, and the chemistry is well understood. Fun, not fascinating. But, of course, you are entitiled to your own take on things.

Imagine how implausible it must seem to us (or to a high school chemistry student, I'd think) that the patently obvious way to control this reaction is to dilute the reactants, but you don't mention having tried that, nor does W3ig suggest it. Imagine how implausible it must seem that, one right after the other, we have two people here, both new CR4 members, suddenly interested in this very common reaction and both treating it as if it is some sort of magic, or some sort of breakthrough. Imagine how implausible it must seem that both of you use the same rarely used term for HHO, (that being 2H2O2) (In fact, if you search all of the many thousands of posts on CR4, that term, right now, only shows up once, in W3ig's post here, but it also shows up in your profile. Go figure. We have had thousands of posts about the HHO scams, and you two guys are the only ones using this terminology.) These are incredible coincidences.

On top of those implausibilties is that fact that you are thanking W3ig, who is an HHO promoter for his "help" (I can see no answer provided by him that deals meanignfully with your question). He only says that you need to do decades of research, and he promotes his own "technology", but will not disclose it; he offers no help at all to you other than the incorrect message that this is tough stuff to understand or do safely. Virtually every high school chemistry class has done this experiment safely, by taking ordinary and reasonable precautions. The obvious reasonable answer to your question is to dilute the reactants... but you have a PhD, you claim... you must know this already, because you can find this in several thousand places on the web, right? Your PhD could be in poly sci, and you would still have the research skills to easily find your answer.) Your profile says, (a bit abusively and abrasively, it seems to me): "The next person that tells me they are involved with HHO (2H2O2)may suffer an injury." Yet you seem to be protraying W3ig, an HHO promoter, as your saviour and the rational folks here as adversaries. How implausible is that???

It seems as if you and W3ig are effectively one and the same, playing off one another in orchestrated fashion doesn't it? You can see how many of us might think that, because it is a common pattern in the promotion of HHO scams. Or it could be an incredible string of coincidences, of course. We engineers understand, perhaps more than most people, that incredible coincidences can occur. Consider chaos theory.

I've reread the posts here, and can't see anything (other than W3ig's post, which seems to be steering you clear of experimenting, and which suggests that there are great secrets to doing this stuff that high school chemistry students nevertheless do every day) that should make you feel like "the high school geek who got beat up by the football team". (If you remember your high school days, it tended to be the geeks, not the bullies, who came down on the side of science and analytical thinking.) If you were looking for someone to say "Wow, aluminum in NaOH is brilliant -- this is the reaction that will end our dependence on foreign oil!" then you are in the wrong place. We are not supporters of ludicrous claims, nor promoters of frauds. We are not promoters of HHO as a miracle aid for fuel efficiency. We are not immediate promoters even of processes developed at MIT, (or Purdue, or anywhere else) because we have to be skeptics and analytical to function in our jobs and to create safe products.

Many of us tend to side with the FTC and SEC, both of which are just getting started in clamping down on the HHO scams. According to your profile, it seems you might value analytical thought, because such is useful in aquiring a PhD -- but now you seem to be saying that analytical thought is a bad thing -- you feel as if we are picking on you. (Certainly you've heard about dissertation defences that were far more strenuous than the simple guidance and direction we've provided here.) The advice from TVP45, Milo, PWslack, Titi-the-rabbit, and me is obviously well-intentioned: we certainly don't want you to injure yourself (although I'd have to say that I was the guy who did most of our house cleaning in the 1960's, and as a result, I ran the reaction at very very high NaOH concentrations more than 100 times without a single inury) and we don't want you to waste your time and money pursuing profoundly old tech thinking it is new tech, nor do we want you to be unwittingly supporting an HHO promoter when you seem to have such strenuous objections to them that you are inclined to injure them.

I must caution you in treating HHO scammers with violence. This is especially important because you and W3ig are from the same town. It is quite possible that W3ig simply does not understand the physics involved: in fact, his incorrect and silly contention that an alternator does not require more energy to run when underadditional load is completely wrong, as you know (both as an electrical engineer, and as someone familiar with the numerous HHO scams). As you know, every generator or alternator follows the laws of any electrical machine, with output energy being dependent upon input energy. You cannot add load to an alternator without supplying it with more energy (which, in a car, must come from the fuel tank... and which arrives at the alternator after huge losses: typically, for each calorie of HHO, you spend a minimum of 5 calories of fuel -- even if the electrolysis is 100% efficeint.) Contending otherwise is the same as contending that perpetual motion machines (over-unity machines) work just fine.

In any event, all the best to you and W3ig -- and please, do him no harm.

BTW, you seem to think that W3ig supplied a useful answer. I missed it. What was it?

Re changing your handle: I'd leave it alone. It has little or nothing to do with our responses. As you have seen, we've been very helpful, despite that name. If you are a hydrogen enthusiast that's great, and we are happy to help, and are happy to advise against violence toward HHO promoters, some of whom are probably honest but ill-informed. (Ironic that so many advertise "integrity" as a core value.) There are several members here who actively work in hydrogen production, who can provide additional help.

Welcome aboard. (And I hope you will join me in welcoming W3ig too -- even you are not thrilled with HHO promoters.) In your field (EE) you will find some extraordinary (and extraordinarily helpful) people here. You might want to wait a while before trying a weekly "Challenge Question" (if you found this thread uncomfortable) because the discussions can go on for 300 or more posts, and become quite (seemingly) contentious (much more contentious than this current thread)... but it's all in good fun. People engage mainly, I think, to help remain thoughtful and analytical, and to exercise brains. People will shave a point very very closely... but we often have to engage in rigorous thought in ordinary engineering, too, so it is good practice.

Should I be concerned about asking questions on topics in my own field of expertise? Will I get the same sort of treatment? I guess i will give it one more try.

I'm sure you will get similar treatment, if, by that, you mean thoughful, analytical, responses. If on the other hand, you are looking only for cheerleading on (for instance) your having developed a permanent magnet motor which requires no external energy to function, then you may find the discussions unsatisfying -- there are other sites where you will be treated as a hero.

Knowing that my colleagues at GE claim to be close to a solution in electrolysis...

A description of this and your thoughts on the viability of the process as compared to current electrolysis methods, in terms of cost, efficiency, and scalability might be an interesting thread for you to start. GE's Norly electrodes could be a real boon to HHO experimenters I suppose. (I generally think of energy cost, rather than capital cost, as being a stumbling block in commercial electrolysis.) Now that there is a scientist as energy secretary, funding for hydrogen is drying up, and your colleagues take on that would be interesting to read about, too.

Sorry for the long post. I just don't have the time to spend in editing it.

Tampa bay is a hot bed of HHO enthusiasts and people conducting experiments. There is a semi-annual event called HHO Games held @ the Civic center in Bradenton which draws 1000's with scores of exhibitors and technical seminars held over a period of days. Granted, there are some people making ridiculous claims, but some are fairly useful devices and this is an attempt to move forward.

This spread like wildfire when gas hit $4. There are no less the 10,000 backyard inventors in this area and even more between here and Naples. Show up at a plastics company and they will ask if you are one of those guys building a hydrogen generator, same at the metal shops and electrical supply houses. Phenomenal.

I am an EE not a Chem E and I am sorry if I did not remember some obscure basic chemical reaction. I know PhD's in Microbiology that cannot remember anything from third semester physics regarding Ohm's law or any basics. The right hand rule to them is what they use to decide which hand to use to control their remote control.

I do not remember writing a word about being fascinated about anything on this thread. You must have me confused with someone else. Although I am curious if it had commercial value.

I will not dignify your remark regarding my education, it was exceptionally rude and uncalled for. I may have borrowed someones remarks along the way during a seminar on what ever topic[he was very passionate about HHO being improperly to describe the gas produced from electrolysis and it stuck with me, again, not a Chem E ]. I know all of us are trying to differentiate ourselves from the scam culture as we are scientists and not hobbyists trying to get rich quick from our garages.

I hope they string up Dennis Lee and Jeff Otto by the short and curlies along with everyone else that sells a system to some poor guy that wants to believe he can double his gas mileage.

Don't get me started on the EIFE scams as that is in my rhelm. I will shred anyone that posts BS on that topic in a NY second. Hey, now I sound like you. I get it!

I wish I could tell you whay GE has going on. NDA

W3ig helped me by convincing me not to screw with the technology. Period.

All other comments regarding above would be fruitless.

HH

I don't speak for Blink (First, he's smarter than me. Second, he's more eloquent. Third, we don't always agree), but I think I've seen him write, and I certainly have, that hydrogen production involving the sun might well work. I personally wouldn't vote first for chemical-based photoelectrodes, but rather a biological process, but who knows, maybe a broad-based shotgun approach would work faster.

But, I have a suggestion for you. Since you say you are associated with GE's effort in this area, why not turn to an authority like John Turner of NREL for guidance? Surely some of your colleagues at GE are familiar with his work and possibly with the man himself.

And, you've got my curiosity aroused. Why is there so much aluminum laying about Florida? It's as scarce as hen's teeth here. Anything not long sold to the scrap yard is likely to be taken by aluminum/copper thieves. God, they even swiped the aluminum downspouts off my shed. We've got trucks of folks riding around night before trash pickup scavenging anything aluminum from the trash cans.

Again you have me confused with someone else. i asked a question. i am not promoting the Al technology, i was curious about it after reading the Purdue claim. That's all. I have all I need on Electrolysis and Fuel cells and all things electrical.

As for what I know about Aluminum laying around Florida? Nada. I heard the recycling centers were stock piling until the prices went back up. Rumor is all. If it important to you I will make some inquiries.

As for GE NDA

I do not remember writing a word about being fascinated about anything on this thread. You must have me confused with someone else.

This have been a strange thread! In post 12 you wrote: "This topic has been extremely fascinating and has captured my attention for quite some time." Perhaps you can see how I might have thought that you were fascinated.

I'm not sure which part of the remark on your education you found rude, but it was not intended to suggest that you were uneducated -- quite the opposite. I was saying that any PhD can be expected to be able to do research. In any event if you took offense, I'm sorry.

I appreciate your clarification on the Tampa scene. Makes things seem not so bizarrely coincidental.

Take care, and go easy on W3ig -- I'm sure he means well.

Sorry dude,

@ least you understand why your handle gives me pause

It is quite a dramatic reaction aluminum & sodium hydroxide...

Always fun to look at potential energy systems, I've posted a bunch myself...

I'm sure curious what GE would consider a "solution" for a net energy loser. The bottom line could easily look real good even if the efficiency is less than ideal LOL.

Welcome & enjoy

As a new user I appreciate TVP45's comment and have a better understanding and appreciation for this forum. Next time, I will not take it personal, I'll take it as a group.

Thanks for showing class! You're a Scholar and an athlete. Happy Days, Joe

HH, I would be more than interested in any real advancements you find in solid oxide fuel cell research or electrolysis that approaches unity.There are those to claim to have surpassed it, but it is a claim. Show me, I am not from Missouri, but love the motto.

Jump in, it's not so bad. You can always contact me offline if you are serious about the chemical process and you are in my neck of the woods. We need a good man with passion and a PhD in EE.