Team:Reading/Fuel Cell

Introduction

Contents

All fuel cells adhere to a basic design. On this page we'll introduce how they work, then show you some of our own. You can also check out plans for making a large rooftop panel, and head over to the human practices page to see how we'd pass the regulatory requirements.

1. Introduction
2. Fuel Cell Design
• Example
3. Our Fuel Cells
4. Scaling it up
5. References

Fuel Cell Design

A fuel cell is different from other cells (like batteries) in that there is a continuously replenished source of energy involved; the most common example of a fuel cell is a Hydrogen Cell, which takes continuous inputs of pure Hydrogen and atmospheric Oxygen to create water, generating energy.

In our cells, Micro-organisms are constantly doing work to generate energy, but need fuelling over time. Yeast cells are more traditional, requiring sugars to keep alive and generating energy. On the other hand, our Bacterial cell uses solar energy to stay alive, only needing a carbon source (such as carbon dioxide) to continue to be productive.

Our Fuel Cells

A look at some of our fuel cells, whether they're cyanobacterial, yeast, or just plain ol' mud.

Scaling it up

At a laboratory scale, our cell gets rapidly outperformed by an AA battery. However, our intent was to create a fuel cell that can outperform standard solar cells on cost, ease of use and maintenance, with the aim of providing easy power sources for incredibly remote locations. Since our cells work with minimal media, it is possible to use sterilised pond water as the base, meaning you don't have to transport perfect media to the desired location. We have tested this by UV-sterilising pond water using the SODIS method, then passing the pond water through a rudimentary filter. UV-sterilisation is done using normal PET plastic bottles that would be easily available in less-developed countries. Rags or old pieces of clothing could be used as a filter to remove larger pieces of debris or plant material. We used PET bottles and paper towels, then added our cyanobacteria to the water. We would expect pond water to contain the low levels of iron and minerals required by our organism, though not necessarily in optimal concentrations, allowing Synechocystis to grow. In our experiement, our cyanobacteria did grow; you can our pond water cultures thriving below.

Synechococcus Bacteria can be dried and packaged for transport, meaning no live cultures need to be maintained, and due to the rapid growth of micro-organisms a small sachet will be able to fill any size container in a few days. This allows scalability based on the needs and available space at the target location.

Even in non-remote areas, our fuel cell can outperform standard solar cells on price, paying for their initial investment in just 30% of the time. With no high cost components, long term maintenance is also cheap and easy.

References

Here are the references.

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