The current environmental crisis due to climate change caused by CO2 emissions has been the driving force behind the development of alternative energy sources and the innovative creation of new ones. Here is a historic finding of energy generation with Coca-Cola cans. Don’t you think this is promising? Now, you’ll get all the details.
Coca-Cola cans as a raw material for power generation: a historic finding
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created an innovative way to produce hydrogen as an energy source in a sustainable, environmentally friendly and greenhouse gas-free way.
The technique involves using aluminium from soda cans, such as Coca-Cola cans, and combining it with seawater. In doing so, the solution begins to bubble and hydrogen is generated in a natural way and can then be used as a fuel.
Just by dropping aluminium pellets into seawater we get hydrogen
This simple reaction is achieved by adding aluminium pellets to a glass of pre-filtered seawater. The pellets must also be about the size of pebbles and must be treated, prior to the reaction, with a solution of rare metal alloys which is very effective in purifying the aluminium.
In this way it will react with seawater and produce hydrogen gas. The curious thing about this historic discovery is that the ions that make up the salt contained in the seawater have the property of retaining the alloy and recovering it. So the water can be reused to generate more gas.
So you have an infinite and sustainable cycle where you just need to have enough aluminium. Which is not very difficult if you take into account the millions of tons of Coca-Cola cans that are produced around the world, either as recyclable waste or simply processed as rubbish. So historic is their use.
But this historic finding doesn’t stop there, as by pure chance they added coffee grounds to the reaction. They noticed, not without surprise, that the reaction accelerated, producing an amount of hydrogen in five minutes equivalent to that which would be generated in two hours without adding the accelerant.
This caused great excitement among the scientists, as it is a residue of coffee and therefore plentiful and cheap. Further studies determined that what accelerates the process is a compound called ‘imidazole’. This is a chemical that is very abundant and active in caffeine.
The only limitation of this historic finding is that aluminium can only react with seawater, to generate hydrogen, when exposed and in its pure state. This is because in the presence of oxygen in the air, a very thin layer of oxide is immediately created that prevents the reaction.
Practical uses for this way of obtaining hydrogen: This is more than just a new energy source
The biggest challenge facing vehicles fuelled with this gas is that they must have tanks to contain it, which is very risky considering that it is highly volatile. This danger is increased when it comes to marine and underwater vessels, as well as the volume occupied by them.
To avoid this, researchers are working on the design of a very small reactor. The concept is that the vehicle would carry this reactor, a small amount of indium gallium and as fuel, old soda cans such as Coca-Cola and other products.
In conclusion, this historic discovery that has the world on tenterhooks uses recyclable Coca-Cola material to generate energy in the form of hydrogen gas. With this method, hydrogen gas can be used as a fuel without the need for dangerous pressurised tanks.
