Aluminum Extractor from Clay Concept: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
**For 15MW-hours of energy per year - solar concentrator requres under 100 square meters of area to fuel this production (assuming 10% solar conversion efficiency). Less than 1/40th of an acre. 100 times as area efficient as biomass. | **For 15MW-hours of energy per year - solar concentrator requres under 100 square meters of area to fuel this production (assuming 10% solar conversion efficiency). Less than 1/40th of an acre. 100 times as area efficient as biomass. | ||
*About 100 grams of hydroflouric acid are required in a closed loop cycle to carry out the first hydrofluoric acid leaching process phase of aluminosilicate to alumina | *About 100 grams of hydroflouric acid are required in a closed loop cycle to carry out the first hydrofluoric acid leaching process phase of aluminosilicate to alumina | ||
*Second phase is standard [ | *Second phase is standard [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-H%C3%A9roult Hall-Héroult] electrolysis. | ||
*Approximately a 6000 square foot facility is required for housing the above process. | *Approximately a 6000 square foot facility is required for housing the above process. | ||
Revision as of 03:49, 2 May 2011
This is a machine for processing clay, an abundant feedstock in many parts of the world (already in fine particles) into Aluminum - a high value, industrial metal. Note the energy requirement:
- About 15kW-hours requirement for 1 kg aluminum produced (1.5 kg diesel energy equivalent at 100% conversion). About 1 gallon fuel consumption per kilogram of aluminum produced assuming 30% conversion of diesel to electrolysis current- super energy intensive if done with traditional fuels
- Process design for producing 1 ton of aluminum per day
- Fueled by Solar Concentrator electrical power, and Modern Steam Engine as backup only, for economic sense on a micro-scale
- About 300kW energy requirement for 24 hours per day - huge
- Practical conversion: 2 acres of biomass fuel required to produce 1 ton of aluminum per year
- For 15MW-hours of energy per year - solar concentrator requres under 100 square meters of area to fuel this production (assuming 10% solar conversion efficiency). Less than 1/40th of an acre. 100 times as area efficient as biomass.
- About 100 grams of hydroflouric acid are required in a closed loop cycle to carry out the first hydrofluoric acid leaching process phase of aluminosilicate to alumina
- Second phase is standard Hall-Héroult electrolysis.
- Approximately a 6000 square foot facility is required for housing the above process.
Strategically speaking - lunar regolith and Mars settlers are quite interested in this. This process has been developed for extraterrestrial applications initially, where there may be no bauxite.
Subject Matter Experts