A McGill-designed engineering experiment, conducted in a research rocket climbing into outer space, could one day help yield a very down-to-earth application: clean alternative energy.
On April 7, an unmanned European Space Agency (ESA) rocket, MAXUS 9, was launched from northern Sweden and flew to 678 kilometres above the Earth – twice the height of the International Space Station.
Once it achieved weightlessness above the atmosphere, an automated experiment in metal combustion began, lasting roughly 12 to 14 minutes. A research team from McGill’s Faculty of Engineering monitored the results from the launch site.
One of four onboard experiments by international teams, the McGill initiative was designed to study the process by which metal powders burn and release energy. More than 100 teams submitted proposals to conduct research on MAXUS 9. According to mechanical engineering professor Andrew Higgins, the McGill experiment received the highest rating of all the proposals that were assessed for the rocket launch.
The McGill team has been examining how metal powders, like iron, could be used as an energy carrier that produces zero carbon emissions. When iron powder is burned, it releases more heat than the equivalent volume of gasoline.
But to properly understand the fundamentals of how metals burn, scientists need to go to the unique environment of weightlessness.
“Gravity makes the resultant particles fall, while making hot gasses rise. Both effects interfere with observation,” explains Jan Palecka, BEng’14, MEng’16, a doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the McGill research team.
The crucial dozen or so minutes in space were the culmination of years of design work; McGill first signed the contract with the ESA in 2009. McGill’s investigation into the potential of metal powders dates further back, to the late nineties.
“The expertise and knowledge developed at McGill, over 20 years of metal combustion research funded by NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and European Space Agency, has enabled us to look at metals as a possible fuel,” says associate professor of mechanical engineering Jeff Bergthorson, the head of McGill’s Alternative Fuels Laboratory.
Metal powders are energy carriers, as opposed to an energy source – the difference is that a carrier still requires an energy source, such as hydro, to help release its energy.
Metal powders contain 50 to 100 per cent more energy than fossil fuels. Iron oxide particles, more commonly known as rust, are the only by-product of metal combustion, and can be collected and recycled back into iron.
To move further toward practical applications, the research team is in discussions with potential corporate partners, in industries such as metallurgy and power generation.
“Depending on funding levels, we may be able to build a prototype reactor in one to three years,” says Palecka.
The MAXUS 9 experiment was a success. It dispersed iron powder in microgravity and generated a fiery burst. The capsule containing the experiment returned to Earth and was recovered, which will give the McGill researchers access to high-resolution data.
A follow-up experiment, also aboard an ESA research rocket, will take place two or three years from now. Bergthorson will be the principal investigator on that project, which has already been approved by the ESA.
Files from Chris Chipello