The future is full of powerplant possibilities - efficient gasoline and clean diesel, hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells and pure electric - but we don't yet have the technology to power a car using cold fusion, à la 'Doc' Brown's DeLorean in the Back To The Future trilogy.
We can replicate the Doc's 'Mr Fusion' waste-fuelled vehicle though, at least on a small scale. The dAlH2Orean (natch) is an aluminum-powered radio control car, designed by a team of Spanish engineers. It's waste aluminum too, using the ring-pulls from soda cans. Mixing the aluminum with sodium hydroxide causes a chemical reaction, a byproduct of which is hydrogen.
The hydrogen produced provides enough power to keep the car running for 40 minutes, with top speeds of up to 20mph. You can check all this out in the video below...
Naturally, it's just a bit of fun and probably not something that could be economically scaled up - it'd probably take slightly more than a handful of ring-pulls to power even the smallest of road vehicles.
We're just waiting for the DeLorean replica. Or a flying version...
[Engadget]
