The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is not actually very high in terms of actual percentage it represents less than half a percent so the reaction would not neutralize all the sodium hydroxide. Also trace amounts of sodium hydroxide is a bit of an overstatement if we have jetliners using 100MW while flying
Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation
ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 3 weeks agoIm no chemical engineer from MIT, but I would assume that trace amounts of sodium hydroxide that are readily reacting into sodium bicarbonate well before they make it near the surface of the earth is probably not an issue of concern
BussyCat@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
FourWaveforms@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
What if it does that during takeoff and landing phases though.
Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
It’s just that, if carbonic acid, a fairly weak acid, already creates so many problems, sodium hydroxide, a strong base sounds like it might be worse
IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Also when sodium hydroxide reacts with acid it releases CO2 and it affects growth of at least some fungus. Also, if a brick sized fuel cell can provide 1kWh and single transatlantic flight consumes at least 20MWh you’d need a pile big enough to build a house which doesn’t sound feasible.
But I’m not a chemist either, I suppose it boils down to comparing negative effects between this new cell against kerosine. Plus there’s always the case which affects any new kind of storing energy where it’ll be indefinetly ‘ready for market in next 5 years’.
Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The immediate issue I can see is not much to do with the base aspect of things, but more to do with the risk of salination of soils and water, but without solid numbers to go off of it’s hard to know what the impact could be.
I’m curious if this could be made to work with elemental potassium, which doesn’t carry the same risk of salination or possibly even the liquid NaK alloy (which would carry the approximately half the risk of salination potential)