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For SpaceNut ... this new topic is patterned after the one you created for Lithium
A quick search by Google revealed that there has been a significant amount of interest in and research on use of Aluminum as an energy storage medium.
An announcement of major investment by an entity in India suggests to me that the topic may have value for collecting news, facts, insights and comments in weeks/months ahead.
There appear to be several ways to use Aluminum as an energy storage medium, so I hope forum members with posting privileges will follow up with links to examples.
(th)
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https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance … 00474.html
Indian Oil made a strategic investment in Phinergy in early 2020, and the Indian firm’s 30,000 service stations can “serve as the infrastructure for the deployment of Phinergy’s technology,” the Israeli company said in an e-mail.
Phinergy’s systems have been tested by telecoms companies for backup power at transmission towers and other sites. The company, which raised $60 million from an initial public offering in Tel Aviv earlier this year, has run a test car using an aluminum-air battery to keep the vehicle’s lithium-ion power pack charged that it says would have a range of 1,750 kilometers.
Here is an artlcle that provides a bit of background on the interest of entities in India in Aluminum-air batteries.
There are advantages and disadvantages, as with everything.
The main advantage ** for India ** is that India has plentiful supplies of Aluminum, and very little Lithium.
The range of a hybrid vehicle of 1,750 km sounds impressive to me. That's just over 1,000 miles.
A vehicle with that range could make a run 500 miles out and back without having to bother with a refueling stop.
(th)
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Metal-air batteries:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E … mical_cell
Of which the aluminium-air battery is a subtype:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alumini … ir_battery
Plus sides: (1) Extremely high energy density, practically rivalling hydrocarbon fuels. This is due to a large part of reaction mass being oxygen from the air. (2) Air on Mars is 95% CO2. This will react with many metals, allowing a metal-air battery to be a usable option on Mars.
Downsides: (1) Not rechargeable. The metal oxide must be physically removed from the cell and replaced with fresh metal for reuse. (2) Recycling the spent oxide back into metal is energy intensive and depending upon other energy losses in the process, whole cycle efficiency may be poor. It takes about 15kWh to produce 1kg of aluminium. Burning it in a battery will release about half as much, even under perfect conditions. (3) The battery gets heavier as the metal reacts with oxygen.
The lack of easy rechargability may be less important in situations where battery cathodes can be designed as disposable units. This may be the case for emergency power units.
On Earth, the iron-air battery has perhaps a unique advantage over others, despite its relatively low energy density. Iron is produced in enormous quantities using thermo-chemical processes, I.e a reducing gas converts oxide to metal at high temperatures. Most of the other metals require some sort of electrolysis of molten oxides or oxides dissolved into a lower melting point flux. The metal entering a battery cell would be powder in an aqueous solution. It would not need to be pure or refined to high metallurgical quality. Crude reduced iron powder will do, it would not matter much if substantial quantities of iron oxide and silicates were present. This is important, because it allows iron fuel to be produced from iron rich sands, by blowing hot hydrogen or carbon monoxide through it at temperatures of several hundred Celsius - far beneath the melting point of iron. Thermal energy from a high temperature nuclear reactor can provide much of the energy needed to produce a mix of metal iron and iron oxide dust.
Last edited by Calliban (2021-07-02 15:34:52)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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aluminum air battery video
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https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/201 … 027256.pdf
Aluminum is a strong reducing agent with a standard reduction potential E°(Al3+/Al) = −1.662 V. ΔE
for the oxidation of aluminum by perchlorate is obtained by adding the oxidation potential of aluminum, E°(Al/Al3+) = 1.662 V,
to the reduction potential of perchlorate, E°(ClO4– /Cl-) = 1.287 V , to obtain a ΔE° value of 2.949 V
for the overall reaction (1): 8Al + 3 ClO4– + 24H+ → 8Al3+ + 3Cl– + 12H2O ΔE° = 2.949 V
seems we can make perchlorite batteries if I read this correctly for mars.
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