 Army scientists and engineers recently made a discovery. An aluminum nanomaterial of their design produces high amounts of energy when it comes in contact with water or any liquid containing water. During routine materials experimentation at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, a team of researchers observed a bubbling reaction when adding water to a material they produced. We all, as a team, we were very excited, ecstatic that something good has come out. We knew that. The team further investigated and found that water, two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen, splits apart when coming into contact with their unique aluminum nanomaterial. That hydrogen that's given off can be used for a fuel in combination with a fuel cell. Scientists have known for a long time that hydrogen can be produced by adding a catalyst to aluminum. Like sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or some acid. You know, because it does not. A catalyst is a substance that increases a chemical reaction rate. We just take our material, put it in the water and the water splits down into hydrogen and oxygen. This is one gram of aluminum alloy powder. The team demonstrated a small radio-controlled tank powered by the powder and water reaction. Moments after mixing the powder with a small amount of water, a bubbling reaction produced a great deal of hydrogen which was then used to power the toy around the laboratory. Our powder in combination with the fuel cell is a very good closed loop. We need water for our reaction and the fuel cell gives off water, so it's closing the loop of the fuel cell power generation cycle. Since the nanomaterial powder has the potential to be 3D printed, researchers envision future air and ground robots that can feed off their very structures and self-destruct after mission accomplishment. There are other researchers that have been searching their whole lives and their optimized product takes many, many hours to say achieve 50% efficiency. Ours does it to 100% efficiency in less than 3 minutes. The research team said the laboratory is all about giving soldiers the advantage. We all feel pretty good that this can contribute to a new kind of research, a new kind of way to generate power on demand, at ease and at will. The next step is to document the discovery with scholarly papers and intellectual property protections and coordinate further applications with scientists and engineers across the laboratory. For ARL TV, I'm David McNally.