3 ms·

Open Source Aluminum

32 points by ph0rque 16y ago

jefflinwood 16y ago
Interesting, but for the context of the project (self-sufficient villages) what's the energy requirements? Aluminum isn't scarce (most abundant metal in the earth's crust), but turning alumina into aluminum requires a lot of energy. Check out the Hall process if you're interested, or for way more information, get a BS in chemical engineering like I did :) The rest of their web site is kind of fascinating, if you want to completely repudiate Adam Smith.
- pontifier 16y ago
  The energy requirements bother me too.. I keep dreaming of slower and more efficient aluminum recycling/extraction. My fantasies mostly revolve around solar concentration in a vacuum chamber. e.g. heat the material containing aluminum and impurities to it's melting point while extracting all gases evolved. I'm not sure how Aluminum Oxide would react in that environment, but I think it would be fun to find out.
  - pontifier 16y ago
    So, upon closer reading the article is about Aluminum Silicate, not Aluminum Oxide. And the process I'm describing is thermal decomposition... after looking here: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/139/3559/1055.short http://www.sciencemag.org/content/139/3559/1055.short and here: http://cnx.org/content/m24918/latest/ http://cnx.org/content/m24918/latest/ I find that Aluminum Silicate would most likely turn into a gas itself before I could extract the oxygen in my solar chamber... hence the need for the hydrofluoric acid to bind to the Aluminum... Sometimes I wonder why I dream at all.
sbierwagen 16y ago
Wow that's a noisy video. Anyway, this is just about extracting aluminum oxide from clay, instead of bauxite. You still have to smelt it, and they're proposing using the Hall-Heroult process, which is dissolving aluminum oxide into cryolite, and electrolyzing it. This is heavy industry! Cryolite melts at 1000C, and isn't a terribly common mineral, and the electrolysis consumes a lot of power, and is about as environmentally friendly as a not at all friendly thing. This is in large plants, with modern emissions controls, and they're saying that a small open cycle plant is going to be green, with a straight face? Meanwhile, you can smelt iron in an open pit fire, without acids, molten cryolite, or electricity.
- pingswept 16y ago
  Also, the chemical they're planning to use to do the extraction, hydrofluoric acid, is extremely dangerous. You can't feel the burns at first, and the fluoride reacts with the calcium compounds in your bones-- not pleasant stuff. http://firegeezer.com/2009/08/11/whats-the-hf/ http://firegeezer.com/2009/08/11/whats-the-hf/
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  This is utter heresy, but a small amount of uranium/plutonium/... in an efficient reactor produces a ridiculous amount of energy. If you're all about reducing shipping, shipping uranium and locally producing metal may seem a good idea. I have no idea if this is what they're thinking about, though, and I imagine dealing with a aluminum smelter is an "interesting" project for the local electrical engineer anyway.
lucasjung 16y ago
"We may be able to build such a facility for about $50k, under drastic cost reduction assumptions of open source economic development." Translation: "We're assuming that the economic system we dreamed up, which hasn't actually been applied on a large scale anywhere in the world, will make the previously unaffordable suddenly cheap."

32 points by ph0rque 16y ago

Interesting, but for the context of the project (self-sufficient villages) what's the energy requirements? Aluminum isn't scarce (most abundant metal in the earth's crust), but turning alumina into aluminum requires a lot of energy. Check out the Hall process if you're interested, or for way more information, get a BS in chemical engineering like I did :) The rest of their web site is kind of fascinating, if you want to completely repudiate Adam Smith.

pontifier 16y ago
The energy requirements bother me too.. I keep dreaming of slower and more efficient aluminum recycling/extraction. My fantasies mostly revolve around solar concentration in a vacuum chamber. e.g. heat the material containing aluminum and impurities to it's melting point while extracting all gases evolved. I'm not sure how Aluminum Oxide would react in that environment, but I think it would be fun to find out.
- pontifier 16y ago
  So, upon closer reading the article is about Aluminum Silicate, not Aluminum Oxide. And the process I'm describing is thermal decomposition... after looking here: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/139/3559/1055.short http://www.sciencemag.org/content/139/3559/1055.short and here: http://cnx.org/content/m24918/latest/ http://cnx.org/content/m24918/latest/ I find that Aluminum Silicate would most likely turn into a gas itself before I could extract the oxygen in my solar chamber... hence the need for the hydrofluoric acid to bind to the Aluminum... Sometimes I wonder why I dream at all.

sbierwagen 16y ago

Wow that's a noisy video. Anyway, this is just about extracting aluminum oxide from clay, instead of bauxite. You still have to smelt it, and they're proposing using the Hall-Heroult process, which is dissolving aluminum oxide into cryolite, and electrolyzing it. This is heavy industry! Cryolite melts at 1000C, and isn't a terribly common mineral, and the electrolysis consumes a lot of power, and is about as environmentally friendly as a not at all friendly thing. This is in large plants, with modern emissions controls, and they're saying that a small open cycle plant is going to be green, with a straight face? Meanwhile, you can smelt iron in an open pit fire, without acids, molten cryolite, or electricity.

pingswept 16y ago
Also, the chemical they're planning to use to do the extraction, hydrofluoric acid, is extremely dangerous. You can't feel the burns at first, and the fluoride reacts with the calcium compounds in your bones-- not pleasant stuff. http://firegeezer.com/2009/08/11/whats-the-hf/ http://firegeezer.com/2009/08/11/whats-the-hf/
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
This is utter heresy, but a small amount of uranium/plutonium/... in an efficient reactor produces a ridiculous amount of energy. If you're all about reducing shipping, shipping uranium and locally producing metal may seem a good idea. I have no idea if this is what they're thinking about, though, and I imagine dealing with a aluminum smelter is an "interesting" project for the local electrical engineer anyway.

lucasjung 16y ago

"We may be able to build such a facility for about $50k, under drastic cost reduction assumptions of open source economic development." Translation: "We're assuming that the economic system we dreamed up, which hasn't actually been applied on a large scale anywhere in the world, will make the previously unaffordable suddenly cheap."