A team of engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a method to produce hydrogen from aluminium cans, seawater and coffee.

The gas is produced by exposing aluminium pellets to a beaker of filtered seawater, in a process that can be accelerated by adding imidazole – an active ingredient of caffeine. This addition can produce in five minutes the same amount of hydrogen that would be generated in two hours without imidazole.

The MIT team pretreated the aluminium, which can be obtained from recycled cans, with a rare metal alloy to scrub it into a pure form, Kallanish notes. 

Salt ions in the seawater can recover the alloy, which can be reused in more cycles.

The engineers are now developing a small reactor to install on a marine vessel or underwater vehicle, which would hold a supply of aluminium pellets, gallium-indium and caffeine. The resulting hydrogen could be used to power an engine to power the vessel, according to a study published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science last week.

“This is very interesting for maritime applications like boats or underwater vehicles because you wouldn’t have to carry around seawater – it’s readily available,” comments study lead author Aly Kombargi, a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “We also don’t have to carry a tank of hydrogen. Instead, we would transport aluminium as the ‘fuel,’ and just add water to produce the hydrogen that we need.”