Add Just a Bit of Water To Tiny Canisters And Power Fuel Cells on the Go

"some kind of water is ofter attainable." seriously, it's even in the first sentence. you guys really need to get a proofreader, or even have the writer proofread it his(or her)self.

@ -my name here-
Pretty sure your probably illiterate. Ofter is an adv. form of "Oft" which means "often" i.e "his oft-expressed philosophy" Maybe you should take EN 101 again.

So many headlines are mis-leading just for the sake of sensationalism. After giving the impression this device is powered by water, they have to backtrack and say that the water activates the chemical in the canister and these canisters of unknown size, weight, and cost have to be replaced, not just re-filled with water.

no need to call me illiterate, as ofter does appear to be a misspelling of often, doesn't show up on spellcheck, and is obviously not well known, especially since it's synonym, often, is used exactly the same way, and is more well known.
and, while I may be smart enough, in some cases to appear to have graduated, I am only 15, and am still in high school and therefore haven't been taught that word, as most of my vocabulary words are very common ones, which I already know. also, I happen to be very literate, comparatively.

Holy shit, BranFlakes (LOL). Like you should talk. It should be "you're" not "your".

@BranFlakes, your definition of "ofter" is incorrect. Ofter, while being an Adverb does not fit with the sentence as "ofter" means "more often". So while the sentence reads
"some kind of water is ofter obtainable" substituting "more often" for "ofter" makes the sentence incorrect for the subject at hand, which is the potential scarcity of water,
"some kind of water is *more often* obtainable" would denote that more is readily available, which anyone with any education past 6th grade should know is not the case.

Now given the vast amount of spelling and grammatical errors that occur in Popsci's articles, I'm 99.9% sure that the author misspelled "often" and since "ofter" is actually a word, his reliance on spell and grammar checks has caused an exposure to the utter lack of both visual spell checking and proof-reading, but also to a lack of peer review and edit. When I had College writing and Technical writing in college, we were taught that a document should be re-read at least 3 times by the author and at least by 3 peers to ensure accuracy, fluidity and readability.

And for the record, my spell check does not like the word ofter at all.

@Roy_H, I couldn't agree with you more. It seems there are authors writing articles just to fill a quota and end up lacking in serious substance or in some cases even basic facts.

well -my name here- let this be a lesson, he who lives in glass houses... i think this saying should be taken to heart by more people. I do love the EN 101 refresh lessons on PopSci article comment sections. I myself am terrible at it and don't care for the spelling. I am here for the content, so i agree with Roy_H sorely lacking in content. To all grammar police please go troll through scientific publications and leave the comments for content based complaints/appraisal

agreed.
however, those who say it isn't reusable, I urge to think. if this works on chemical reactions started by water, then of course it isn't reusable, as adding water again won't cause a reaction after it's already happened, and as expected, nothing can run on water alone, unless the "on" is literal, in which case we're talking about a boat, that doesn't really matter. so a chemical reaction started by water which powers the fuelcell, could be simplified by saying the water powers the fuelcell, as that is all that is added, and seeing as how it starts the reaction, it technically DOES power the fuelcell.

Only the Jesus-lizard can run on water ;)

Holy Post Docs! If I make a fuel cell with a little KOH or NaOH, a piece of soda can (aluminum)that you just add water to, can I sell it to the Military for 50 or 100 times cost as done ofter than not? Why so fancy? What is cheaper than draino and a used soda can for making H2?

Let's stop all the raging about grammar, and let's talk about the content of the article which is what's important.

@1-nitrane: it is true that all you need are the right alkali metals, and a mechanism for utilizing the reaction, and you have fuelcells that are activated by water, but I think the achievement here is the fact that they are so small.

So i know that KOH and NaOH will react with aluminum to relase hydrogen, but how do you get electricty from H2? Does a secondary reaction take place in the other canister to get electricty from the H2?

second comment- Unlike conventional batteries (im guessing) the canisters are i bit more reusable than precharged batteries. *One, that you could (guessing again) pop the top off and add more dry chemicals and then add water, a plus i think dry chemicals weigh less than batteries.
*Two, is the left-over chemicals harmful to the enviorment, if not, cool. It said that the dry chemicals the Cans run off are comman element, so looking at the size of those cans could you make a much larger version for a emgercy power generator, or even to power a town?