Aluminum-powered car

[hpw]

Israeli company designs aluminum-powered car engine

fuel is 100% recyclable, zero emissions, 15 gallons will get you 1500 miles

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/06/07/israeli-company-designs-aluminum-powered-car-engine/

http://www.alcres.com/docs/alydro-hybrid-electric-vehicle.pdf

 

[dankeenan]

edit x

 

[darkk]

Hmmmm....drinking and driving may be encouraged by this car. Need more fuel? Drink a few beers and drop the empties in the tank! Vroooom! away you go!

 

[DynoDave]

Sounds cool. Some initial thoughts....

Isn't aluminum very costly (requiring a LOT of electricity) to produce? So if reducing ones carbon footprint is the goal, does this work?

What is the initial source of energy for creating this 900* temp?

If the process removes the hydrogen from the aluminum powder, then the process to reform the used alum. powder would be to put the hydrogen back? Where does this hydrogen come from? And how much energy does that take?

 

[Tscott]

"melted at a temperature of 900 degrees Celsius and reacts with steam to form aluminum oxide, a process that creates hydrogen and heat. The heat generated by the reaction then takes over powering the reactor, making it a self-sustaining system"

At first glance this does not follow the law of conservation of energy.

Sure it does, because it is not a closed system. Once the chemical reaction begins in the reactor, you just keep adding reactants allowing chemical energy to be continually converted to thermal energy. It would violate the law of conservation of energy if they claimed that the reaction could continue without added fuel. Think of it like a camp fire, once you light the fire and get it going, it will peter out on its own if you do not add wood. But keep adding a log every now and then and the reaction continues indefinitely until you run out of wood. It is basically the same thing except instead of wood, you are oxidizing aluminum.

Tom

 

[Tscott]

Sounds cool. Some initial thoughts....

Isn't aluminum very costly (requiring a LOT of electricity) to produce? So if reducing ones carbon footprint is the goal, does this work?

What is the initial source of energy for creating this 900* temp?

If the process removes the hydrogen from the aluminum powder, then the process to reform the used alum. powder would be to put the hydrogen back? Where does this hydrogen come from? And how much energy does that take?

You are correct, aluminum takes a ton of electricity to produce. The Wiki Page shows Bauxite as the natural form of aluminum, but at a specific point in the process of making pure aluminum the ore is converted to aluminum oxide and electrolysis is used to create the molten aluminum.

From the links in the first post, aluminum oxide would be the product of the reaction of the aluminum powder and the oxidizer. So technically the fuel could be recycled and used again.

I am guessing if this technology ever became main stream that we would simply trade gas for coal in order to produce more aluminum. Like anything else, it is a trade off. I wonder how much 15 gallons of aluminum powder would cost? I know the aluminum oxide I use in my blast cabinet is something like $60 for a few gallons at TSC. It would seem Aluminum would cost even more.

Tom

 

[zuk123]

I don't know about this version, but in the alternative energy tinkerer/ fringe, there are a LOT of projects to react aluminum and get out the energy to power a car.

Most of the projects reek of 'perpetual motion' scams and wishful thinking.

One thing I do know. Any welder will tell you, the aluminum reacts so fast that almost instantly it forms an oxide on the outside, which stops any energy releasing.

If those guys somehow cracked the chemistry, that 1000's of people have been looking at for years, then hooray. But the most likely scenario is that this doesn't actually work.

zuk

BTW, because of the energy cost to make it, aluminum used to be more precious than gold. You see a lot of high end decorative items made from aluminum from the early part of last century.

 

[GarageEnvy]

One for me. One for the car.
One for me. One for the car.
One ofr me. Oen fur da kar.

I hit a tree. Didn't get too far.

 

[Greatbear]

Hey, Fox News reported it, so it has to be true.

The key words in the description are "powdered aluminum being added to a pre-heated reactor", so at least part of the process is initiated by an external, independent energy source. The matches that light the fire, so to speak. The other thing to take home from this is the "burning" of a fuel that took such a great deal of energy to produce in the first place. You might as well be running your car on alkaline D-cells.

 

[Spencyg]

That technology has been around for years and isn't in any way a realistic technology for the mass market. Basically, they are arcing aluminum wire under water to seperate hydrogen. The oxygen mates with the aluminum to form a sludge at the bottom of the water tank which is probably toxic. Hydrogen is then pumped into a regular internal combustion engine for go-power. This type of story is right in line with the Fox reporting philosophies.

There are far more exciting alternative energy advances out there...this one was a bad idea 20 years ago.

 

[LutzTD]

I may be wrong, but aluminum production is based around hydroelectric. those hydroelectric plants are out in the sticks where conveyance of the power results in huge transmission loss anyway, sooooo, if the conversion to aluminum and then the subsequent conversion back to power is efficient, it may actually end up being cheaper than plug in cars which retain the transmission losses in their functional model, plus you can carry the fuel instead of having to plug in, the plug in requirement makes electric cars **** for anything more than 75 miles.

 

[Tscott]

I may be wrong, but aluminum production is based around hydroelectric. those hydroelectric plants are out in the sticks where conveyance of the power results in huge transmission loss anyway, sooooo, if the conversion to aluminum and then the subsequent conversion back to power is efficient, it may actually end up being cheaper than plug in cars which retain the transmission losses in their functional model, plus you can carry the fuel instead of having to plug in, the plug in requirement makes electric cars **** for anything more than 75 miles.

I'm not sure where aluminum is produced, but if you are gonna use what would otherwise be wasted generation capacity to make fuel, it would seem smarter to skip over the middle man (i.e. Aluminum) and go directly to producing hydrogen. This is an idea that has been proposed for nuke plants. During the peak hours, they would produce power for all to use, but at night and the other low points in the generation demand curve they would keep the generation up so that nearby facilities could be used to produce hydrogen. You would have to do the math on each process, but I'd be willing to bet you would end up with less overall energy spent per BTU producing hydrogen then you would producing aluminum and then using that aluminum to produce hydrogen.

Tom

 

[lygintuvas]

hydrogen peroxyde plus alluminum equals alluminum oxide and hydrogen. No additional heat is needed. its same thing which powers jet packs.
Hey whats the point to look for alternatives, when we are using same unefficient internal combustion engines 20-30% of efficiency is enough?
nothing arises without reason and do not disappear without consequences.
So, everything is about conversions from one matter to another, even our precious fuel was built absorbing energy of light from the sun millions years before us.
If you interested, there is lots of interesting ideas about energy storage, like remove tank, and put big flywheel for energy storage

 

[Tscott]

hydrogen peroxyde plus alluminum equals alluminum oxide and hydrogen. No additional heat is needed. its same thing which powers jet packs.
Hey whats the point to look for alternatives, when we are using same unefficient internal combustion engines 20-30% of efficiency is enough?
nothing arises without reason and do not disappear without consequences.
So, everything is about conversions from one matter to another, even our precious fuel was built absorbing energy of light from the sun millions years before us.
If you interested, there is lots of interesting ideas about energy storage, like remove tank, and put big flywheel for energy storage

You know it's interesting you mentioned the sun. I got to thinking about this the other day while driving (yeah, I am that guy), with the exception of nuclear energy, all the power we use originated in with the sun. Think about it. Oil is left over organic matter, basically plants, that grew using the sun a long time ago. Coal is the same story as oil. Solar power is self explanatory. Wind power comes from wind that is generated by the sun. Hydro power is collected from water ways that are filled with rain water that was evaporated by the sun. Tidal power is created by the wind which was caused by the sun. We are basically using the earth as a form of battery to power our lives. We are using energy that has been stored up in the earth for a really long time. I'm not sure I have a point other than it is very interesting to think about all these different solutions people come up with and how they are all nothing more than conversion of energy from one form or another and they are all so tightly interconnected.

This is my Zen thought for the day.

Tom

 

[sirsloop]

I love alzheimer's!!

 

[-Brent-]

I've seen a rubber band powered car and read about, electric generating/battery operated cars, solar power, air powered, magnet power or magnetic propulsion, water as fuel, perpetual motion, etc. They're all gimmicks thus far.

 

[Zeke]

Why does every idea start out relating to the car? The car is not the problem.

 

[LutzTD]

I'm not sure where aluminum is produced, but if you are gonna use what would otherwise be wasted generation capacity to make fuel, it would seem smarter to skip over the middle man (i.e. Aluminum) and go directly to producing hydrogen. This is an idea that has been proposed for nuke plants. During the peak hours, they would produce power for all to use, but at night and the other low points in the generation demand curve they would keep the generation up so that nearby facilities could be used to produce hydrogen. You would have to do the math on each process, but I'd be willing to bet you would end up with less overall energy spent per BTU producing hydrogen then you would producing aluminum and then using that aluminum to produce hydrogen.

Tom

I agree with the hydrogen except for two points, storage and transport. Aluminum wouldnt require pressure vessels, no danger of explosion, no leaks etc

I always though iceland was squandering the chance to generate and sell all the hydrogen the wolrd would need, other than the fact they are so far away from everything

 

[-Brent-]

why does every idea start out relating to the car? The car is not the problem.

Perfectly said!!!

 

[speed bump]

I did a paper about this process while I was in school and it basically came down to being a bad idea because recycling the Al required dealing with the most energy intensive steps of Al production.

There are all kinds of cool scams and ideas out there for alt fuels and just plain gaming the system. Some could work, a lot of them require unobtanium though.

 

[p_mori7]

One for me. One for the car.
One for me. One for the car.
One ofr me. Oen fur da kar.

I hit a tree. Didn't get too far.

I don't care who you are, now that there is funny !

 

[lygintuvas]

Why does every idea start out relating to the car? The car is not the problem.

cause all new technologies firstly is adobted by automotive industry. It's most new technologies and innovations friendly.Just look at it, like for example xenon light got much cheaper, when it was introduced to car.

 

[yhprum]

Google thermite and see how aluminum can generate extreme heat. But I dont know exactly how you could use it, unless maybe you were making steam/

 

[1948]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkler turn your car into this when you get into an accident lol

 

[dadsEH]

Anybody got a nos flux modulator for sale?