E-Team members (left to right) Jonathan Francis '98, Carl Mas
'98,
Professor Fred Orthlieb, and Graham Lucks '98 atop Hicks Hall.
Hicks Hall, where a student "E-Team" is working to develop a new, more efficient way to produce and store electrical power, is no ivory tower. Senior engineering majors Jonathan Francis, Graham Lucks, and Carl Mas have practical ends in mind, ends that could even be profitable. The E stands not for "engineering" but "entrepreneur."
"Our goal is not to increase knowledge for its own sake but to develop new technology for the sake of progress," says engineering Professor Frederick Orthlieb, the faculty adviser to Mas, Lucks, and Francis. "And if money gets made, so much the better."
The three seniors are working under a $14,000 grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to develop a prototype design for a hydrogen fuel-cell energy system that people could use in their off-the-grid homes. These fuel cells&emdash;5-by-5-inch graphite plates&emdash;could eventually make off-the-grid living cleaner, more practical, and more affordable.
Unlike power plants, fuel cells produce energy without any environmentally unfriendly byproducts like carbon dioxide, sulfates, or nitrates. They also offer important advantages over batteries as a key component of off-the-grid power systems. (See main story.) Bat-
teries contain lead and acid and can be only partially recycled when they wear out; fuel cells' chief "waste" product is water, which is used again and again in the same power-generating system. Fuel cells, once perfected, also promise greater efficiency than batteries, in which energy dissipates on the way in and the way out.
The fuel-cell system being developed by the Swarthmore E-Team starts with photovoltaic cells that transform the energy of the sun into electricity. To "store" the power, the system uses the electricity to split a supply of water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then, when the user needs the power for a load of laundry, for example, the hydrogen and oxygen are recombined, producing water and&emdash;voilà&emdash;energy.
The same technology could also power cars in the near future, a prospect that Mas finds exciting. "You could use the same fuel-cell system that powers your house to, in effect, fill up your gas tank," he says.
Mas, like his partners, is pursuing the fuel-cell research as his senior design project, which is required of all engineering majors. The Vermont native sees cost as the biggest obstacle to immediate use of fuel cells.
"Very few manufacturers make small fuel cells in large quantities, so no economies of scale have been achieved to make this technology affordable," he says. "Also, there are other expensive components to the system that are manufactured in only small quantities. It could all become much more affordable if a fuel-cell automobile industry grows and an infrastructure for a hydrogen-based economy is created."
Under the terms of the NCIIA grant, Francis, Lucks, and Mas would keep 75 percent of any profit; the remaining quarter of the proceeds would belong to the College.
&emdash;T.K.