McGill-led research points to metal powders as potential
replacement for fossil fuels
(December 10, 2015) Can
you imagine a future where your car is fueled by iron powder instead of
gasoline?
Metal powders, produced using clean primary energy sources,
could provide a more viable long-term replacement for fossil fuels than other
widely discussed alternatives, such as hydrogen, biofuels or batteries,
according to a study in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Applied Energy.
“Technologies to generate clean electricity – primarily
solar and wind power – are being developed rapidly; but we can’t use that
electricity for many of the things that oil and gas are used for today, such as
transportation and global energy trade,” notes McGill University professor Jeffrey
Bergthorson, lead author of the new study.
“Biofuels can be part of the solution, but won’t be able to
satisfy all the demand; hydrogen requires big, heavy fuel tanks and is
explosive, and batteries are too bulky and don’t store enough energy for many
applications,” says Bergthorson, a mechanical engineering professor and
Associate Director of the Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering
and Design at McGill. “Using metal
powders as recyclable fuels that store clean primary energy for later use is a
very promising alternative solution.”