Richard Engel
SERC’s Hydrogen Energy in Engineering Education (H2E3) project continues to pick up steam. We are now building the first of the two fuel cell test stations we will make for use in undergraduate engineering labs. The stations will be temporarily installed on a rotating basis at California State University and University of California campuses over the next two years. After surveying available fuel cells from commercial suppliers, we decided to build our own stacks for use with the test stations. The stations and stacks will be completed during the coming months.
Meanwhile, we are finalizing our prototype design for an advanced version of the benchtop electrolyzer/fuel cell experiment kits we originally developed for use in high school chemistry classes. Two dozen of these kits will be produced, also for shared use among California’s university campuses. In parallel with hardware development, we are writing our first lesson plans, for use in introductory engineering courses.
We will be sharing our progress on all aspects of this Department of Energy-funded project at the DOE’s upcoming Hydrogen Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation meeting in Washington, DC in May.
The project also has a new logo, shown to the left. This logo will be used to brand the project, appearing on all H2E3–related hardware and documents.
