Aaron Stebner, professor and Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. Chair in Manufacturing at Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and also a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, will lead the multi-year project alongside Scott McWhorter, who heads Federal Initiatives at Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute.
The research team includes experts from Georgia Tech, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and collaborators from Fort Valley State University, the 21st Century Partnership, MatSys, and Drexel University. The team aims to engineer aluminium’s material properties to enable cost-effective manufacturing that triggers a highly efficient reaction for producing clean, low-cost hydrogen.
“Aluminum already reacts with water even wastewater and floodwater — to create hydrogen gas, power, and thermal energy. If aluminium can be efficiently upcycled into stored energy, it could be a game-changer,” said McWhorter.
