Clean Energy Alternative

The future of clean energy looks promising with the result from a research conducted by the US National Medal Of Technology Winner, Professor Jerry Woodall and a Purdue University Engineer.

They 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. With their method, the two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy could be solved. The challenges are on the transportation of the hydrogen and the storage.

Hydrogen would be made inside vehicles in tanks about the same size as today’s gasoline tanks instead of having to fill up at a station. An internal reaction in those tanks would create hydrogen from water and 350 pounds worth of special pellets.

An internal combustion engine or a fuel cell stack then powered by the hydrogen. According to Woodall, it’s simple to convert the ordinary internal combustion engines to run on hydrogen. What you need to do is just replace the gasoline fuel injector with a hydrogen injector.

Here’s how it works according to Woodall:

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.”

Click here to read more from the source. After I read the article, I’m wondering what happen to the LMG Hydrogen Powered Car? Any idea?