Aluminum particles are widely used for space and military applications to significantly enhance the performances of solid rocket motors. More recently, they have been envisaged as one of the future energy carriers : they can burn to release heat without any carbon chemistry. Recent experimental information obtained both on isolated and dispersed regimes afford new insights on the burning process of an Al particles. a 1. Introduction Metal combustion has an interesting energetic potential and generates elevated combustion temperatures. According to its high energetic density (specific energy 31 MJ/kg) and its wide availability, aluminum micrometric particles are currently used in industrial solid propellants, especially to increase thrust of the solid rocket motors (SRM). The combustion of aluminum particles in SRM is a complex process. Particles leave the propellant surface and burn in a specific gaseous environment, under high temperatures and pressures, given by solid propellant combustion. The study of the aluminum combustion phenomenon has therefore been a continuous research effort. Recently, aluminium particles have been envisaged as a potential candidate as a metallic energy vector to meet global needs of a clean zero-carbon energy. Fundamental properties and structures of these Al-air two-phase flames are still poorly known compared to traditional hydrocarbon flames. However, in order to study the valorization possibilities of the energy released by an Al-air flame and therefore the viability of an energy carrier based on aluminum powders, it is essential to describe properly the combustion process of aluminum particles burning in a dispersed condition. From an energetic overview, it is also essential to evaluate the energy distribution between the radiation, convection and the energy remaining in the condensed phase. In this context, we have developed two complementary experimental setups allowing to study the combustion process of both isolated and dispersed particles.