SocraticGadfly: New hope for fuel cell cars?

May 19, 2007

New hope for fuel cell cars?

Hydrogen for auto fuel cells without a tank?

It’s possible, if one highly common metal and one kind of rare one can both be dropped in cost, and engineering comes through.

The highly common metal? It may be in your hand right now if you’re thirsty — aluminum. The kind of rare one? Gallium, the only metal besides mercury to be liquid at some normal conditions, melting at 86F/30C, and also, like water, expanding on freezing.

Anyway, pellets made of an amalgam of the two materials would be used to produce free hydrogen in reactions with water. The main price point concerns would be the cost of gallium, and the cost of reducing the oxidized aluminum back to its pure state.

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