Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!estell
From: estell@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Air-Aluminum Battery/Fuel-cell
Message-ID: <21000041@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 89 01:35:00 GMT
References: <4157@csd4.csd.uwm.edu>
Lines: 13
Nf-ID: #R:csd4.csd.uwm.edu:4157:m.cs.uiuc.edu:21000041:000:745
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!estell    Sep  7 20:35:00 1989


First, the aluminum air power cell is available through the Edmund Scientific
catalog.  You could also order directly (and ask for product info) from the
manufacturer: ALUPOWER, Inc., 6 Claremont Road, Bernardsville, NJ 07924.
In the literature I have, the process is explained as follows:
  "The ALUPOWER battery cell uses a special Aluminum alloy as an anode
and Air as a cathode.  The electrolyte is Salt Water."  The Al reacts with
H2O to produce Al(OH)3; the excess of electrons at the anode and O2 from the
air reacts with H2O to form OH- , depleting electrons from the cathode.

The "special Al alloy" obviously contains some sort of catalyst to speed up
the reaction between the O2 and H2O, but I don't know what it is that
they added.