The neat thing about this reaction is that the gallium is not consumed. It can be recovered and reused with new aluminium to make more hydrogen. Here is bit more about aluminium-gallium.
Here is gallium vs. a variety of aluminium objects.
Price of aluminum is tied to the price of energy because of energy intensive process to make.
ALCOA stock usually goes down w/ high energy prices— except during “crazy years” …
Forget about carbon capture —learn how to free hydrogen!
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Orgill asserted that the aluminum would normally be thrown away. Is that true (vs. recycling)?
Even if true, any issues hindering recycling (separation, cleaning, etc.) would likely also hinder use in hydrogen generation.
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The hydrogen is generated due to the highly reactive aluminium, stripped of its protective oxide coat and with a high surface area due to being fractured by the gallium, oxidising by taking oxygen from the water molecules and leaving the hydrogen to bubble away as a gas.
The end product of the reaction is aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃), also known as corundum, and sometimes used as an abrasive. Since it is fully oxidised, recovering the aluminium metal requires the same energy input as refining aluminium from corundum ore. If this process were commercialised, it is likely the corundum by-product would be marketed for one of the applications for which it used. It would be economically impractical to recover the aluminium metal, since that would require more electricity than it would take to produce the same volume of hydrogen by direct electrolysis of water.
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Here are patents by Jerry Woodall of Purdue University relevant to this technology. The last patent returned by this search is a false positive for another Woodall, unrelated to the technology.
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