Quote:Jerry Woodall, an engineer at Purdue University, has created an aluminum alloy that reacts with water to create hydrogen and heat. He is encouraging venture capitalists to design a system that uses both — capturing the hydrogen as fuel and using the heat to pull clean water out of the air. The greatest benefit of using aluminum is its abundance.

"There is enough aluminum on the Earth’s crust to supply the whole world’s energy needs," Woodall told InnovationNewsDaily.
To make use of this aluminum, Woodall melts it and combines it with gallium, indium and tin. In room temperature, these last three ingredients coarse through the metal as a liquid dissolving the grains of aluminum around it. In this state, water can react freely with all the material. As pellets of the alloy drop into water, they spontaneously split the water into heat and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be used to power devices, or it could feed into a fuel cell to produce electricity.

Just 2.2 pounds (one kilogram) of the aluminum alloy provides 12.9 kilowatt hours of energy when exposed to water. This compares favorably to coal, which yields only 6.7 kilowatt hours.

Furthermore, all of the aluminum that goes into the reaction can be fully retrieved. It just needs to be thrown into a crucible and reprocessed.

(03/10/2011 03:27 PM)Insidexdeath Wrote:  Great news! At least some will stop using nuclear power.