Some researchers at Purdue have developed a process for extracting hydrogen from water using and alloy of aluminum and gallium. The article at physorg.com gives some details on the process, it’s byproducts, and the economics. You add water to this aluminum/gallium allow, and what you get out is hydrogen gas, aluminum oxide, and gallium. The hydrogen can be burned or used in a fuel cell, while the aluminum oxide has be be recycled back into aluminum (and with the gallium, back into the alloy). Recycling the aluminum oxide requires electricity, of course, so this amounts to another kind of battery. If the recycling can be done cleanly and cheaply enough, though, it might enable getting away from burning gasoline for running our cars.
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