What do old soda cans, seawater, and caffeine have in common? As Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers discovered, they can all be used to produce hydrogen fuel, which could be a key player in the clean energy transition.
Since traditional fuels like gas and oil are the primary causes of our overheating planet, scientists are working overtime to discover renewable energy sources and implement them on a mass scale.
Because hydrogen does not release the planet-warming gas carbon dioxide when burned, it's an ideal fuel for many applications. In addition, it would protect humans from health issues that are exacerbated by burning dirty fuels, such as asthma.
As Interesting Engineering reported, the researchers figured out that by exposing aluminum from soda cans to seawater, the reaction creates bubbles and produces hydrogen gas.
However, to generate hydrogen, the team first had to pretreat the aluminum with a rare-metal alloy to remove impurities. This formed a circular system in which the salt ions in the seawater could attract and recover the alloy, which could then produce more hydrogen.
The only downside to the process was that the reaction took two hours to generate hydrogen. However, the team realized that adding imidazole — an active ingredient in caffeine — could speed up the reaction to just five minutes, proving that humans aren't the only life forms that respond to a stimulant.
Interesting Engineering reported that the MIT team is working on building a small reactor that could power marine vessels or underwater vehicles.
It would essentially provide an "on-demand" hydrogen system by funneling seawater, aluminum pellets, the rare metal alloy gallium-indium, and caffeine into the reactor. The fuel could then be used to generate electricity or provide fuel for ships.
"This is very interesting for maritime applications like boats or underwater vehicles because you wouldn't have to carry around seawater — it's readily available," Aly Kombargi, a Ph.D. student in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the study's lead author, told MIT News.
Plus, it's a much safer option than ships directly carrying hydrogen gas on board since it's highly flammable and explosive if not handled properly, per the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
With the ability to recover the otherwise expensive, hard-to-obtain rare metal alloy and the accelerated reaction time, the team believes they have everything necessary to develop a green hydrogen reactor. Per MIT News, the researchers aim to run trials in marine and underwater vehicles before working on scaling up the process.
According to the team's calculations, a reactor carrying about 40 pounds of aluminum pellets could provide enough fuel for an underwater glider for about 30 days.
"We're showing a new way to produce hydrogen fuel, without carrying hydrogen but carrying aluminum as the 'fuel,'" Kombargi said. "The next part is to figure out how to use this for trucks, trains, and maybe airplanes. Perhaps, instead of having to carry water as well, we could extract water from the ambient humidity to produce hydrogen. That's down the line."
Hydrogen is quickly becoming a larger part of our energy mix and is already being used to power cargo vessels and planes. Continuing to research new ways to use hydrogen will be key to diversifying our clean energy sources and ushering in a healthier future.
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