Michigan Tech awarded fuel cell research grant

Michigan Tech was awarded $897,000 last month to fund an investigation into methods of improving automotive fuel cell characteristics by the Department of Energy. The money comes as part of a $2.7 million collaboration between Rochester Institute of Technology, General Motors and Michigan Tech.

The project will be run on the Michigan Tech side by Assistant Professor Jeffrey Allen (MEEM). Other persons titling the project are principal investigator Professor Satish Kandlikar, who holds the James E. Gleason chair at RIT, and a senior research engineer from General Motors, Dr. Thomas Trabold. Trabold hails from the Fuel Cell Development division in the GM research department and represents the corporate interests in the project. Other researchers billed in include Professor N. Rao of RIT and Jon Owejan of GM.

Michigan Tech has a rich history of work with fuel cell technology. Spanning the campus, there is curriculum not only in the mechanical and chemical engineering departments but also in the materials engineering and physics departments. The Alternative Fuels Group enterprise (http://www.enterprise.mtu.edu/afg/) is a more visible example of fuel cells, with their e-Gator, a John Deere ATV powered completely by hydrogen fuel cells.

The Michigan Tech Carbon Technology Center, formed June 1998, conducts more scholarly research involving fuel cells. With continued work on conductive resins and carbon foam, applications have been tested for efficiency increases in fuel cells. Summer Youth Programs even got in on the fuel cell action when they included alternative fuels and fuel cells as part of the Women in Engineering and Explorations in Engineering programs. High school students were introduced to alternative fuels by the chemical engineering department and the AFG demonstrated fuel cell operation and the science behind them.

It is therefore not a surprise that Tech was chosen for the collaborative grant. The project titled “Visualization of Fuel Cell Water Transport and Performance Characterization,” (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/new_fc_kandlikar_r...) will explore water transport and water accumulation in automotive fuel cells. The goal is to develop components and materials that minimize water accumulation within the cells, as accumulation causes freeze damage which essentially shreds fuel cells and chokes performance. To research this, the project team will use a combination of high-speed imaging to look for a number of flow and pressure drop issues.

The collaborative project is currently funded for three years. In this time, the three organizations will work in concert to involve students from all levels and move from fundamental to component-level research within that time. The project has been billed as part of the DoE’s action under the Advanced Energy Initiative established by President Bush in 2006. Total funding through this initiative currently exceeds $100 million.