Department of Physics
Condensed Matter Seminar

In 1968, a team lead by the author discovered that liquid gallium saturated with aluminum at room temperature would split water into hydrogen gas, alumina and heat. More recently his current team has discovered that bulk, solid Al rich alloys will also split water in the same manner. Since 1) the energy density of Al via the water splitting reaction is 8.6 kW-hr/kg (as hydrogen plus heat), 2) Al is plentiful both as 400 billion kg of scrap metal lying on the planet's surface and is currently produced in large quantities at world-wide foundries via the electrolysis of alumina, 3) the small concentrations of the Ga or (Ga,Sn,In) in the Al alloy are inert and totally recoverable, simple calculations show that Al rich alloys could be an economically viable enabler for a potable large scale hydrogen economy. This presentation will focus on our current research aimed at understanding how and why our bulk alloys work. We will also, discuss some of the more sensible applications for this technology.