Beverage Can (aluminum) Hydrogen

OK, so, do you want to take the empties back to the store, or would you like to drive 3 miles to the can? Here is a guy who took an old science class idea, and is driving on almost free fuel. Add store bought red devil lye and some water to an aluminum beverage can, and you get hydrogen gas:

He's not disconnected the gasoline system quite yet, but he's working on it. Participate in his forums and help him develop this system.


According to Hydrogen Appliances:

A 20 lb. slab of aluminum has enough energy to power an electric car for over 500 miles.

1 gram of Al = 0.0370 moles
Each mole Al yields 3 moles of electrons.
0.0370 moles x 3 x 96500 C/mole = 10700 Coulombs
An Amp is a Coulomb per second, so one Amp flow would last 10700s.
10700 amp-s / 3600 s/hr =~ 3 Amp-Hours per gram of aluminum.
At 14g per beer can, that comes to about 42 Amp-Hrs per can!!!
At 2 volts, that's about 300 kJ per can! And you thought only the beer kicked butt !!! : )

The Fred McGalliard method of hydrogen production:

I like aluminum in sodium hydroxide solution. (That's a common form of drain cleaner.). This has the bad habit of getting very very hot and accelerating the production as it heats up. I think the vapor also tends to suck along some of the hydroxide, so you may want to clean and cool it before using it in a cell. This method uses the hydroxide to dissolve the aluminum hydroxide that is formed. The aluminum is actually burning the oxygen from the water in the cell. Hydrochloric acid (commonly sold as muratic acid at hardware stores) and zinc pellets is also a good chemical method, and I think it is not as hot as the hydroxide method. The hydrochloric acid method is amenable to adding acid from a funnel column to obtain a self regulating pressure source. Pressure drops, the weight of the column forces more acid in and increases the production rate.

- Green-Trust's Hydrogen pages -