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| 10/21/2009 11:27:00 AM Email this article • Print this article |
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Members of the Ithaca community inspect the fuel cell engine of a Toyota Highlander Monday at Duffield Hall. (Photo by Taryn Thompson) |
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Cornell hosts second annual fuel cell vehicle event
About 50 lucky students and local residents had the chance to ride in the latest fuel cell editions of a Chevrolet Equinox, a Toyota Highlander or a Mercedes A Class car Monday afternoon.
Three or four different cars from Chevrolet, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz demonstrated their latest prototype fuel cell automobiles at Cornell University's second annual Fuel Cell Ride and Drive, hosted by the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute and the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation at Duffield Hall.
CFCI Associate Director Paul Mutolo said the idea behind the presentation is to show the public that fuel cell cars are not light years away.
"This is to show them that it's coming and to show the politicians that the public is excited about it and that they're interested in it, to help the infrastructure improve," Mutolo said.
A fuel cell is a device that employs a combination of hydrogen and oxygen within a membrane to generate electricity for an electric engine. There's no exhaust: the only byproduct - or emission - of this chemical reaction is water.
"At heart of these vehicles is a stack, just like a battery stack in you car, except that instead of having multiple batteries stacked up, you now have multiple fuel cells stacked up," Mutolo said.
"Each one of those is a Membrane Electrode Assembly, and its where the chemistry happens - where you convert the fuel into electricity," he said.
MEAs are multi-layer, complex units that alone cannot produce much power. But hundreds of single cells stacked up like a loaf of bread can produce significant power. The fuel cell research conducted within CFCI centers around MEAs.
"Our institute is working on all materials for that unit to improve it's cost, it's durability, and it's manufacturability," Mutolo said. "All of those basic building blocks for that single repeat unit of the fuel cell, we work on across the campus. We work on membranes, we work on catalysts, we work on the methods in which these interact and are built together."
The current state of fuel cell technology is such that costs are high and the durability is maybe half of conventional vehicles.
"These cells are electrochemical devices, so in the process of generating electricity, they're going through a chemical process combining the oxygen and hydrogen together," said Robert Wimmer, a representative from Toyota.
"There are a half a dozen different ways these cells degrade," Wimmer said. "We're trying to understand those types of degredation and then design around it while lowering cost."
The Toyota Highlander makes 110 horsepower and can travel more than 400 miles on one fill. The vehicle can also start at temperatures as low as negative 35 Celsius, but it might only last 50,000 to 75,000 miles in its lifetime.
"The goal with this prototype was to get the efficiency up and the range up," Wimmer said. "It's basically capable of starting under all conditions and has a range very similar to a gasoline vehicle. Better durability will come with our next generation vehicle."
The fill-up process for a fuel cell car is identical to that of a conventional, gasoline-based car in that drivers simply pull up to a station. But the station must be properly outfitted with a special pump. There are only 40 such stations in New York state.
"It's not like a normal nozzle," Wimmer explained. "You connect the nozzle and turn a little handle to lock it on. Once it's locked on, the computer in the pump begins to communicate with the car and process, so it's all automatic."
The nozzle and tank opening are much smaller than a gas pump and gas car. It takes about five minutes to refuel and puts approximately five kilograms of hydrogen into the tank.
The research at CFCI is headed by faculty primarily from the departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Material Science and Engineering, in addition to faculty from the departments of Physics and Applied and Engineering Physics.
"The faculty lead the projects but grad students do most of the work in the labs and they have a lot of under graduate help too," Mutolo said, adding that Cornell is already working with General Motors on specific projects.
"All of GM's activities are right here in New York State, so we already have projects going with them, [offering] test components from which they can build an MEA," Mutolo said.
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Suicide has recently come to Ithaca in a very public, and at times controversial, way. This past academic year, after three years with no suicides, Cornell experienced what is known in the scientific community as a "suicide cluster." OK, so maybe you're like me and you thought this whole JetBlue flight attendant story was good for maybe one news cycle.  |
