This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

One of the core issues with replacing fossil fuels throughout a modern industrial economic system is the difficulty of finding replacement fuels for coal, oil, and natural gas. A new written report from researchers at McGill University suggests that powdered metallic fuels could be an constructive replacement for the fossil fuels we currently rely on, while simultaneously slashing carbon emissions and ecology costs.

According to professor Jeffrey Bergthorson, the ascension in renewable power is laudable, but only addresses part of the problem. Neither solar nor wind ability provides enough electricity to straight bulldoze a car, much less a freighter. Battery engineering science can fill this gap to some extent, merely historic battery improvements only aren't growing quickly enough to encounter the gap. Equally the nautical chart below shows, bombardment energy density has merely improved past roughly iii% per twelvemonth since 1910.

Battery capacity over time.

Battery chapters over time. Don't permit the jumps fool you — the long-term trend is quite low.

Absent a massive and unexpected improvement in Li-ion engineering, something else is needed. Enter powdered metallic fuels.

Pow(d)ering the modernistic economy?

Kickoff, the expert news: Unlike Li-ion batteries, which have absolutely miserable free energy density whether you measure by weight or volume, powdered metal's energy density per liter dwarfs whatever conventional fuel. The grains of powder in question would be quite fine — roughly equivalent to flour — and the engines themselves would rely on external combustion In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of gases applies force to the engine components directly — an external combustion engine contains a fluid that is heated by an external source. Both Stirling engines and steam engines are external combustion engines, though the former can be far more efficient than the latter.

In theory, powdered metal engines would accept pregnant environmental advantages compared to conventional fossil fuels. The metal itself can potentially be recycled (the image below is from a separate story from 2005, only captures the theoretical recycling process):

running_on_iron

The major declaration out of McGill today is that its research squad has demonstrated that a stable flame tin can be sustained in a flow of metal particles suspended in the air. The squad writes that "the energy and ability densities of the proposed metallic-fueled heat engines are predicted to be close to electric current fossil-fueled internal combustion engines, making them an bonny technology for a time to come depression-carbon society."

Despite the real potential of powdered metallic, there are some substantial barriers to entry that McGill'southward PR doesn't really address. The commencement problem is that while powdered metals are quite efficient in terms of specific energy per liter, they don't compare well at all in terms of specific energy per kilogram. This is particularly true of fe, which is often floated as the replacement fuel source thanks to its abundance and low cost. Other metals, like aluminum, are incredibly explosive in powdered course and are a non-choice for stable combustion.

fuels_of_the_future

The other problem with the proposed utilise of powdered metal every bit a primary fuel source is that it would crave a huge infrastructure investment in heavy mining equipment — investments that would non, themselves, be carbon neutral. Granted, this is true no matter what approach we take, since lithium mining isn't exactly carbon neutral, either — merely the processes required to plow fe ore into the fine-grained particulate required to use it as a fuel would require additional energy over and above simple smelting. The research team doesn't address this at all, beyond noting that "some novel techniques tin can avert the carbon dioxide emissions associated with traditional iron production using coal."

Loosely translated, that ways: "Nobody has figured out how to do this in a price-competitive fashion." Nosotros've seen similar bug with hydrogen fuel cells. While hydrogen tin theoretically be produced via the electrolysis of water using free energy provided by renewable resources, it's non remotely cost-competitive to exercise so. The hydrogen used in fuel jail cell vehicles today, what picayune there is of it, is typically produced by natural gas reformation — a decidedly not carbon-neutral process.

I of the intrinsic difficulties of trying to find improve alternatives to existing infrastructure is that many improvements simply accost one aspect of the total ecosystem. Ideally, even these pocket-size advances can be used to lower the ecology impact of the entire organization — simply all as well often, costs and difficulty are offloaded into other areas.

Powdered metallic has some interesting upsides, and information technology could provide an alternative in sure use cases — simply it's hard to imagine the technology emerging as a serious contender at this signal. Afterwards all, GM one time demonstrated (and confidently predicted) that vehicles would run on coal dust the consistency of flour, or even liquified coal by the turn the century.

The future is now! Unless it isn't.

The future is at present! Unless it isn't.

And then far, that hasn't exactly worked out.