Will we be driving cars with water in the gas tank soon?
Researchers at the Purdue University in Indiana have developed a method to produce hydrogen from water using an aluminiun alloy.
Jerry Woodall, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, discovered accidentally that liquid alloys of aluminum and gallium produce hydrogen if mixed with water.
This discovery makes it easy to produce hydrogen from water on demand. Storage and transportation of the gas would not be major issues anymore. Hydrogen can be used to power fuel cells and run internal combustion engines.
Gallium, which is critical to the process, doesn’t get used up and can be recycled over and over again. It is however much more expensive than aluminium. In order to be economically competitive, both the prices of aluminium and gallium need to go down.
Another factor is the weight of the aluminium alloy. Gasoline produces about two and a half times more energy than aluminum weightwise. It means more space would be required for the aluminium alloy.
Until those issues are addressed, we should not yet open the water tap to fill up the gas tank of our car.
Sources: News Purdue University
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