[Vision2020] Professor Sys Energy Department Egos Blocking Hydrogen Breakthrough

[Glenn Schwaller]

I always worry when academic scientists choose to announce their
research via the mainstream media as opposed to peer reviewed
journals.  On the other hand, I tend to be almost as equally skeptical
of peer-reviewed publications, considering many "premier science
journals" have published retractions on cutting edge advancements
reported in those journals.

Schwaller
Retired academician and researcher


> Woodall says:
>
> "The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you
> need when you need it," he said in a statement released by Purdue this
> week."
>
> I hope that this is not a "cold fusion" type claim.  If this claim has
> merit, then its consequences, both good and bad, will be far reaching.
>
>
>
> W.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ted Moffett
> To: Vision 2020
> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 1:45 PM
> Subject: [Vision2020] Professor Sys Energy Department 'Egos' Blocking
> Hydrogen Breakthrough
>
>
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700750/
>
>
>
> A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says
> he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy.
>
> Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an aluminum
> alloy to extract hydrogen from water — a process that he thinks could
> replace gasoline as well as its pollutants and emissions tied to global
> warming.
>
> But Woodall says there's one big hitch: "Egos" at the U.S. Department of
> Energy, a key funding source for energy research, "are holding up the
> revolution."
>
> Woodall says the method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen
> — two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy.
>
> "The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you
> need when you need it," he said in a statement released by Purdue this week.
>
> So instead of having to fill up at a station, hydrogen would be made inside
> vehicles in tanks about the same size as today's gasoline tanks. An internal
> reaction in those tanks would create hydrogen from water and 350 pounds
> worth of special pellets.
>
> "No extra room would be needed," Woodall said, "and the added weight would
> be the equivalent of an extra passenger, albeit a pretty large extra
> passenger."
>
> The hydrogen would then power an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell
> stack.
>
> "It's a simple matter to convert ordinary internal combustion engines to run
> on hydrogen," Woodall said. "All you have to do is replace the gasoline fuel
> injector with a hydrogen injector."
>
> How it works
>
> Here's how it all happens: Hydrogen is generated spontaneously when water is
> added to pellets of the alloy, which is made of aluminum and a metal called
> gallium.
>
> "When water is added to the pellets, the aluminum in the solid alloy reacts
> because it has a strong attraction to the oxygen in the water," Woodall
> said. "No toxic fumes are produced."
>
> This reaction splits the oxygen and hydrogen contained in water, releasing
> hydrogen in the process.
>
> An electrical and computer engineering professor, Woodall first discovered
> the basic process while working as a researcher in the semiconductor
> industry in 1967.
>
> "I was cleaning a crucible containing liquid alloys of gallium and
> aluminum," Woodall said. "When I added water to this alloy — talk about a
> discovery — there was a violent poof. I went to my office and worked out the
> reaction in a couple of hours to figure out what had happened. When aluminum
> atoms in the liquid alloy come into contact with water, they react,
> splitting the water and producing hydrogen and aluminum oxide."
>
> That research led to advances in cell phones, solar cells, optical-fiber
> communications and light-emitting diodes, and earned Woodall the 2001
> National Medal of Technology from President Bush.
>
> In recent years, Woodall built a team of Purdue electrical, mechanical,
> chemical and aeronautical engineering students to fine-tune the process.
>
> Cost speed bumps
>
> The Purdue Research Foundation holds title to the primary patent. And a
> startup company, AlGalCo LLC, has received a license for the exclusive right
> to commercialize the process.
>
> But there are some speed bumps on the highway to hydrogen.
>
> With internal combustion engines, the cost of recycling the aluminum oxide
> must be reduced to make the process competitive with gasoline at $3 a
> gallon.
>
> "Right now it costs more than $1 a pound to buy aluminum, and, at that
> price, you can't deliver a product at the equivalent of $3 per gallon of
> gasoline," Woodall said.
>
> That cost could come way down, he figures, if the recycling is done with
> electricity from nuclear power plants, wind turbines or even solar power
> plants if economically viable. The aluminum oxide and gallium would be
> shipped to such plants, using electrolysis to break the oxide back down to
> aluminum, Woodall said, "and we start the cycle all over again."
>
> If used in fuel cells, the process would be economically competitive with
> gasoline, Woodall noted. "Using pure hydrogen, fuel cell systems run at an
> overall efficiency of 75 percent, compared to 40 percent using hydrogen
> extracted from fossil fuels and with 25 percent for internal combustion
> engines," Woodall said.
>
> But the fuel cell systems themselves are still much more expensive and less
> reliable than internal combustion engines. "When and if fuel cells become
> economically viable, our method would compete with gasoline at $3 per gallon
> even if aluminum costs more than a dollar per pound," Woodall said.
>
> Funding speed bump
>
> For Woodall, the biggest speed bump lies elsewhere. "The egos of program
> managers at DOE are holding up the revolution," he told msnbc.com.
>
> "Remember that Einstein was a patent examiner and had no funding for his
> 1905 miracle year," Woodall added. "He did it on his own time. If he had
> been a professor at a university in the U.S. today and put in a proposal to
> develop the theory of special relativity it would have been summarily
> rejected.
>
> "Likewise, since I won my National Medal of Technology for compound
> semiconductors and not making hydrogen, DOE does not recognize me as a
> member of the club." As evidence, Woodall said DOE last summer rejected two
> "pre-proposals" for funding, " i.e., I was not invited to send in full
> proposals on my work."
>
> ----------------------------
>
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
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