This Liquid Metal Turns Garbage Into Fuel

I am a Ph.D. student working with aluminum-gallium alloys in energy production and I would like to clarify a couple things I see in the comments regarding the idea. A lot of people are suggesting that this is actually a poor idea to use in cars, airplanes, etc. and I believe they are right. But that doesn't mean it isn't going to be useful. The major interest in Al-Ga alloys is its use as an energy carrier. As good as batteries are for some applications, the energy density of batteries are actually quite horrible, which is an issue if you want to store energy rather than just have it be portable. For example, wind, solar, and nuclear energy are difficult to throttle on demand. In other words, you only get energy from the wind when it is blowing and from solar when it is sunny. Conversely, you will be getting energy from wind and from solar whether you need it or not. To solve this problem, a lot of ideas are to use batteries to store unused energy from these "clean" energy sources so that it can be used at a later time. However, due to the really poor efficiency of batteries, a lot of energy is lost. This is where Al-Ga may come in handy. We can use excess solar, wind, and nuclear energy to produce aluminum from aluminum oxide. The aluminum now acts as a "battery" to store the energy. Then, when we want to release the energy again (e.g. in the middle of the night when the wind isn't blowing, etc.), the aluminum gallium can produce hydrogen which can then be burnt in a powerplant to create on-demand energy. This process of storing energy in aluminum is actually a lot more efficient than most batteries. So while this may not be terribly useful in cars or vehicles themselves, it may be useful as an energy carrier for large-scale powerplants.

This is super cool, I love that the gallium isn't consumed. I think I'd rather see fuel made from garbage with gasification though so we can recycle the aluminum. Aluminum is a great metal.

My main issues with this hydrogen production method is that it’s energy intensive. Like using electrolysis for hydrogen sourcing. Large scale it’s a greener hydrogen source than nat gas but only if the aluminum was produced green. Global aluminum demand is already pretty high and the recyclability of aluminum is pretty good. It’s mathematically energy cheaper to remelt aluminum than it is to reduce aluminum from ore. I never see this method used for industrial H2 production but rather as a H2 source for small scale labs kinda like how zinc is used

I'd kinda expect that it saves more net energy when scrap aluminum is recycled back into aluminum products (vs. refining brand new aluminum) than the energy you could produce by oxidizing the scrap and capturing hydrogen. But it's entirely possible that I could be proven wrong, so I suppose it's good that someone's looking into the economic feasibility of such a process.

Just tried this out for myself, I think it’s cooler that just water and sodium. I love your vids, keep it up.

Have you considered cutting a thicker piece of aluminum in a vacuum chamber to prevent it from forming the protective oxide layer and then experimenting to see it if it reacts with water etc? I know it would be difficult but you are a master of Macguyvering in a vacuum chamber!

By any chance, did you weigh how much gallium you got back from it? Even though the yield should remain 100%, it's still fairly interesting to see how much was lost in the clean-up process.

For those wondering, if it's this simple, why isn't it used? Bare in mind that I'm no chemist or have any scientific background on this, so please, experts feel free to correct me and add up relevant info. Sorry and thanks! The answer is kinda in the video already - you need lots of energy to produce aluminum, so much so that it makes much more sense to recycle and reuse it rather than decomposing and turning into fuel. As aluminum is optimally recycled and has lots of uses... it just doesn't make much sense to expend it as fuel. It might be interesting as alternative source, but tit for tat, electrolysis is still probably a better alternative in terms of total energy expenditure to produce hydrogen as fuel. Gallium is... not quite as bad as something like lead or mercury, but also not super great. It doesn't occur naturally, as a free element in Earth's crust, but rather comes out as by-product of zinc and aluminum mining. It's valued at just bellow silver and indium, but not too much below.... so it's pretty expensive to get. Used in lots of electronics products.

It's a good thing I keep a stockpile of Gallium for times like this.

2:23 goofy laught, the mark of a true scientist.

Many industries use heat-intensive processes that generally require the burning of fossil fuels, but a surprising green fuel alternative is emerging in the form of metal powders. Ground very fine, cheap iron powder burns readily at high temperatures, releasing energy as it oxidizes in a process that emits no carbon and produces easily collectable rust, or iron oxide, as its only emission. Burning metal powder as fuel sounds strange, the next part of the process will be even more surprising. That rust can be regenerated straight back into iron powder with the application of electricity, and if you do this using solar, wind or other zero-carbon power generation systems, you end up with a totally carbon-free cycle. The iron acts as a kind of clean battery for combustion processes, charging up via one of a number of means including electrolysis, and discharging in flames and heat.

Great content 👍🏻 just the stuff for inspiring young minds in this new energy storage mindset we are creating . Awesome

This channel keeps surprising me with it's excellent content. Keep going 😁

'Well it turns out there is!'...and I mentally heard the Vsauce theme song 😂😂😂

Hi The Action Lab, Nice video. Depending on the molar ratio (or the weight) of the reactants of aluminium and water you can have different outputs: 2Al + 3 H2O --> Al2O3 + 3 H2(g) Al + 2 H2O --> Al(=O)OH + 3/2 H2(g) Al + 3 H2O --> Al(OH)3 + 3/2 H2(g) and Al2O3 + 3 H2O --> 2 Al(OH)3 HO-Al=O + H2O --> Al(OH)3 You spoke about NaOH and the way it is consumed into the water decomposition reaction from aluminium by chewing the oxidized protective layer of the naked metal: Al(OH)3 + 3 NaOH -->(NaO)3Al +3 H2O HO-Al=O + NaOH --> NaO-Al=O + H2O --> NaO-Al(OH)2 NaO-Al(OH)2 + 2 NaOH --> (NaO)3Al + 2 H2O and O=Al-O-Al=O + 4 NaOH --> (NaO)2Al-O-Al(ONa)2 + 2 H2O --> 2 (NaO)2AlOH + H2O 2 (NaO)2AlOH + 2 NaOH --> 2 (NaO)3Al + 2 H2O ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Al2O3 + 6 NaOH --> 2 (NaO)3Al + 3 H2O That is the usual NaOH prills / Al dust to declog plumbig; (beware caustic and dangerous for eyes (possible permanent blindness) and for mucosas; so wear personnal protective equipment (PPE-googles, face shield, labcoat, glooves) --> heat, --> soap making from greases, --> strong base to decompose proteins by hydrolysis (like fibrous hair clogs) --> and H2(g) generation as a foaming inside the clogging liberating some pressure with a physical action inside the clogging. Of course you forgot the famous acidic reaction of HCl: Al + 3 HCl --> AlCl3 + 3/2 H2(g) and the spontaneous recycling of the HCl due to hydrolysis of certain Al salts: AlCl3 + 3 H2O --> Al(OH)3 + 3 HCl 2 AlCl3 + 3 H2O --> Al2O3 + 6 HCl So a little HCl or NaCl in acid media can litteraly chew through a lot of aluminium down . Last advantages HCl is gaseous, and can be concentrated by dissolution to about 35% by weight into water (that is almost 10 M solution or 10 mols/L (350g HCl/kg water); so it could be also endlessly recycled by vaporisation and recondensation-dissolution; of course this depends onto the side reactions of the "pollutants" inside aluminium foil (there are always others metals as traces into it because it is not chemically pure (thus far from lab grade ingredient) as an industrial product and finally ending as a garbage. The funny and beautifull part of this acidic process is that the after garbage of Al2O3 can be recycled into corrundums (saphires and rubbies of nearly all rainbow colors even colorless leuco-corrundum) but that is a totally different story flying far above most people heads. Regards, PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from the Science Madness forum)

This method also beats out using copper (II) chloride to demonstrate aluminum's high reactivity since gallium isn't toxic like copper (II) chloride. Pretty cool that elemental aluminum under the hood is actually quite a highly reactive metal (as this video demonstrates) even though it doesn't seem like it under normal conditions unlike other highly reactive metals such as sodium!

So I don’t know if you read comments or not, but if you do, I just wanted to tell you, thanks for the great content. You are always a personality that I look forward to seeing an upload from. Your interest in what you do makes it clear that you’re into what you’re teaching and it honestly makes learning that much more enjoyable. Keep it up, and thank you!

I love how you drank that water to prove that it was indeed water 😁

I've been looking into this for a while now, and am planning on creating an engine or power source of some kind, that runs on aluminum. I live on a farm with loads of scrap metal, and having all this energy on hand is really useful.

Great video. This guy always has some cool & sometimes weird projects. I learn something new every time I visit!