4 ms·
Not a battery. It's a fuel cell that's "burning" aluminum by oxidizing it. Once the reaction is complete, you end up with basically aluminum ore that has to be
by rladd 7y ago
Not a battery. It's a fuel cell that's "burning" aluminum by oxidizing it.
Once the reaction is complete, you end up with basically aluminum ore that has to be re-refined, at great energy cost.
My guess is that this is highly inefficient and will not turn out to be very useful.
- neilwilson 7y agoRefining is just electrolysis though and which could be done in the sunny parts of the world. What you have here (potentially) is solar storage that can be shipped in ingots
- intpx 7y agoMaybe not for mass adoption but i can think of a few highly specialized applications where an incredibly lightweight and energy dense power source is needed for a short period of time, but they are all pretty terrifying