Clean Water, Clean Energy

Ode Magazine   
December 15th, 2011

Credit; WikiMedia

By Wouter Janssen

In the prosperous US West, we generally only get worked up about clean water and electricity when the bill arrives in the mail, and we discover that once again, we’ve been showering too long and leaving the lights on too often. But in many parts of the world, people can only dream of bills like these. Clean drinking water and electricity are unavailable. These people live too remotely for companies to recoup the cost of providing such amenities; thus, no one is willing to tackle the problem.

If all goes well, an idea that originates with electrical engineer Jerry Woodall will soon change this. The Purdue University professor invented an aluminum alloy that can make contaminated water potable and generate electricity in the process. According to Woodall, his idea is unique: No competing technology can extract both drinking water and electricity from any type of water using an element as common and inexpensive as aluminum.

Though Woodall patented the principle underlying his technique in 1968, he didn’t try to come up with a practical application for it until a few years ago, when he became motivated by the increasing demand for sustainable green energy. The result is a mixture of aluminum, gallium, indium and tin that weighs just 110 pounds (50 kilograms), including a reactor and a fuel cell. The lightweight design makes the device easy to transport, so people from Africa to Haiti can use it as long as a water source is available.

The electricity and water are produced when the alloy comes in contact with water, catalyzing a spontaneous chemical reaction that separates the hydrogen and oxygen molecules from one another. Feeding the hydrogen molecules into a fuel cell produces electricity, with steam as a by-product. The steam is collected, and any bacteria present are destroyed by the heat, making the condensed water potable.

The only waste product is harmless aluminum hydroxide, which, according to Woodall, could be used to smelt a new alloy without releasing CO2. He is looking for a commercial partner to build a prototype and bring the product to market.

[Source: Ode Magazine]

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