The Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (IAAAP) in Middletown, Iowa has an overabundance of two things: corn waste and excess energetics—leftover explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics and such. But using a new ethanol-based fuel cell developed by nanoMaterials Discovery Corp (nMDC) will transform these waste materials into clean, cheap, electricity. Two birds, one catalytic reaction.
Commissioned by the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, the prototype fuel cell is designed to produce 10kW of power (and 2MW within five years) using ethanol as an energy source and nitramine-based ordinance. Corn ethanol is a renewable biofuel that is derived from corn stock—either the kernels themselves or the cellulosic components like the husks and cobs—and produced just like consumable alcohol is: use enzymes to break down the long carbohydrate chains into short sugars, ferment the sugars into alcohol, and distill. And with Iowa being one of the top corn-producing regions on Earth, there's plenty of waste available for precursor processing. The nitramine catalyst comes from waste energetics left over from the factory's production of medium and large ordnance, ie tank and artillery shells. Normally this is hazardous waste and expensive to dispose of properly but, as a catalyst, provides the shot needed to begin the energy production process.
Source: GIZMODO
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