EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON LOW-TEMPERATURE ALUMINIUM OXIDATION PROCESS ACCOMPANIED BY GENERATION OF HYDROGEN

Abstract

The present study is devoted to developing the concept of the power units using aluminium as an energy carrier and water as an oxidizing agent which are able to operate under low temperature conditions. In this paper there are given the methods allowing one to carry out a rapid reaction of aluminium oxidation involving generation of hydrogen at low temperatures below zero. In the experiments both granulated non-activated aluminium (the sizes of pellets are about 5 mm) and powdered aluminium activated by liquid eutectic on the basis of gallium Ga-In-Zn. The experimental data obtained demonstrated that hydrogen yield obtained in the reaction of activated aluminium with KOH water solution was considerably higher than these figures for ZnCl 2 and CaCl 2 solutions. At a temperature of –10 °C aluminium conversion for NaOH solution is equal to 94%, for KOH – 93%; at –20 °C: for NaOH – 36%, for KOH – 80%. For KOH solution at –30 °C and –40 °C these values are 67 and 17 % respectively. In the experiments on oxidation of non-activated aluminium in hydrochloric acid water solution in the presence of CuCl 2 oxidation of 2.5 g aluminium resulted in generation of 2120 ml hydrogen; for FeCl 3 solution hydrogen yield was equal to 70 ml with partial freezing of the solution.