Course description and objectives:
Application of thermodynamics, transport phenomena, and reaction engineering to understand the performance of electrochemical systems and processes. Applications include electrolysis, batteries, and fuel cells.
After successfully completing this course, you will be able to:
- Gain a better understanding of electrochemical systems
- Understand the thermodynamics of electrochemical systems
- Recognize electrode kinetics
- Understand the transport mechanisms in electrochemical systems
- Understand modeling procedures for electrochemical systems (graduate students)
- Get familiar with typical electrochemical instrumentation
- Gain “hands-on” experience with the state-of-the-art sources of energy such as batteries and fuel cells
- Design, build, and test and electrochemical process
To fulfill the objectives of this course the class has been divided into mentoring sessions, lab sessions, and workshops.
The mentoring sessions will be used for presenting new concepts and problem solving techniques. The students are expected to read and understand all of the material in the sessions assigned in the textbooks, class notes, and handouts. The course material will be presented using active learning. The instructor will act as a mentor for the class. New concepts will be introduced using a presentation style. Students will have class time to solve problems (using the taught concepts) and ask questions (individually and by groups). After sometime, the complete solution of the problem will be discussed in class.
The lab sessions will be used to perform experiments that will allow you practicing the concepts presented during the mentoring sessions. You will perform the following experiments:
Graduate students will be required to attend computer lab sessions and special mentoring sessions to cover the modeling topics.
Workshops sessions will be used to discuss new research areas and special topics. The workshops will consist of a presentation followed by a demonstration session. During the demonstration students will get familiar with electrochemical characterization techniques and fabrication methods. Even though the material cover in the workshops is not graded is important that you participate in the discussions as they are part of class participation. It is suggested that you research on the topic before the class so that you can participate in the discussions and ask questions. Below is the list of the tentative workshops for the course:
- Lithium ion batteries: In this workshop you will learn about the importance, uses, limitations, and research areas of lithium ion batteries. In addition, the students will go to the lab where four different working stations will be found: 1. electrodes fabrication, 2. battery assembly, 3. battery testing, and 4. battery performance.
- Plating and electrode characterization: In this workshop you will learn about different plating techniques, advantages and disadvantages of plating, plating variables, and electrode characterization, etc. In addition, the students will go to the lab where seven different working stations will be found: 1. surface preparation, 2. electrode plating, 3. plating procedure schedule and data, 4. surface area, 5. adhesion, 6. morphology, 7. surface profile.
- Fuel Cells: In this workshop you will learn about fuel cells, efficiency of fuel cells, types, advantages, disadvantages, fabrication of MEA, and design and economics of PEM fuel cells. To complete the discussion students will go to the lab where three different working stations will be found: 1. Fuel Cell performance, 2. PEM fuel cell parts, and 3. PEM economics in a spreadsheet.
- Hydrogen Economy: In this workshop you will learn about what is hydrogen economy, advantages and limitations of hydrogen economy, hydrogen production methods, and state of the art on hydrogen production. To complete the discussion students will go to the lab where they will learn about the contributions of the EERL and OCRC to the hydrogen economy.
- Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: In this workshop you
will learn about solid oxide fuel cells and fuel processing technology. This
workshop will take place in SOFCo-EFS (http://www.sofco-efs.com/)/,
Class Notes: Class notes for the topics will be available at the course webpage. You are responsible for printing and bringing the notes to class.
Lab Reports: You will write a short report (maximum 5 pages) describing and discussing the findings observed during the experimental sessions. Your report should include the following sections:
- Cover page
- Data
- Results and Discussion: discuss and answer the questions posted in the experiment handout
- Calculations
Your behavior during the experiment will be observed and it will be considered in your report grade (lab attitude, 5 points). More details about lab grading are given in the lab grading sheet. All results and data must include uncertainties. Use propagation of error to determine uncertainties, for more details see “propagation of error #1” and “propagation of error #3” at http://webche.ent.ohiou.edu/che416/syll416w_2003.html
Quizzes: These quizzes will be closed notes, except for one piece of paper with the necessary equations. Any material needed will be provided during the test, or you will be told to bring it with you. The material you are responsible for under each format will be explained ahead of time. Basically each quiz will cover the content of each topic in the class (see tentative schedule for quizzes content and dates). You will have 30 minutes for the quiz.
Class project:
As your class project you will design, build, and test an electrochemical system. The electrochemical system that you will work on will be an electro-chem-e-car. Details about the project are given in the Final Project handout. It will be a team project. The team members will be selected by the instructor. There won’t be more than 5 members per team.
Class Paper (Graduate Students Only):
Graduate students are required to write a review paper for a topic that will be assigned by the instructor. The paper will be done by groups. The team members will be selected by the instructor. You must follow the structure of a review paper submitted for to a peer review journal. When doing the analysis of the papers you must be critical. You need to focus on importance of the research (or paper), limitations of the paper, identify the progress in science due to the contribution of the authors, suggestions for future work and improvements. The following structure is suggested for your paper:
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Review
of Papers: this is the section where you have to be critical (positive and
negative aspects of the paper, importance of the paper, suggestions for
future work. e.g., techniques used, materials tested, methodology
employed, etc). See example given next, which was done for the analysis of
the paper entitled: “Hydrogen production from coal water and electrons”
by Coughlin and Farooque
Most of the studies available in the literature on
electrolysis of coal/water slurries have been performed in batch systems (bulk
electrolysis). None of the studies have been performed at pressures different
than atmospheric. The thorough review presented next shows that it is necessary
to perform additional studies for the design of a continuous coal/water
electrolysis system; in addition, the studies must be performed using Ohio
coal.
Coughlin and Farooque4 reported the kinetics and thermodynamic feasibility
of electrolyzing coal/water slurries. They did their experiments using Pt
electrodes; however, they indicated that they did not observe significant
differences in the electrochemical reaction when using graphite electrodes. The
authors proposed that the electro-oxidation of coal/water slurries take place
according to the reaction given in Eq. 1, while the reduction of hydrogen
cations takes place at the cathode:
(2)
Therefore, the total reaction
is given by:
(3)
The theoretical potential required for the oxidation
is 0.21 V, which represents, 11 W-h/H2 mol. The theoretical energy
consumed is much lower than for the electrolysis of water, 66 W-h/H2
mol.
The authors4 reported that the process produces practically pure
streams of hydrogen at the cathode and carbon oxides at the anode (CO2
with 3 to 7% CO). The authors noticed differences in the oxidation behavior of
different coal samples: Montana Rosebud (char and coal),
The authors4 noted a decrease on the oxidation rate with time.
They claimed that it may be due to the formation of films on the coal surface
(e.g., surfaces oxides, hydroxyl, carbonyl, or carboxyl groups) as reported by
other researchers.16-18 However, they did not perform any surface analyses.
Some researchers1 have reported that the presence of CO poisons
platinum electrodes decreasing the reaction rate, therefore, it is possible
that part of the behavior observed by Coughlin and Farooque4 was due to CO poisoning, but this argument was not
suggested or analyzed in their paper. They4 also noticed that either by heating the coal up to
200 oC or by washing it with some organic solvent (e.g., acetone)
the coal was reactivated (this procedure probably destroys the films on the
surface of the coal).
Another important observation made by the authors4is that the ratio of the gases formed did not agree
with the stoichiometry of the equations shown above (Eq. 3). Much less gases
were collected at the anode than at the cathode. The reason could be due to a
build up of the films on the surface of the carbon. It is our opinion that
also, if CO2 is formed in an acidic medium, another reason for not
collecting gases according to the stoichiometry is that CO2 is much
more soluble in water than O2, in addition, CO2 can react
with water and formed carbonic acid (H2CO3). This
possibility was not analyzed by the authors.
- Trends and Future work
- References
Your paper should not be more than 10 pages (excluding cover page and references), double spaced with font size 12. Keep 1” margins (right, left, top, and bottom). Number all the pages. The paper topics will be:
- Coal Fuel Cells
- Electro-oxidation of ethanol
- Alkaline Fuel Cells
Attendance: Students are expected to attend every class and lab session. If you
miss an assignment or exam, contact me to schedule a makeup. There most be an
honorable excuse for a makeup exam. If you know you will miss an exam,
speak to me in advance to make arrangements. Refer to "Class
Attendance" in the Student Handbook
for the
Academic Conduct: Engineering is a profession, and ethical behavior is expected of professionals. You are expected to act in a professional manner in this course. Academic dishonesty is defined in the Student Handbook and will be dealt with according to the guidelines therein. Exchanging information on assignments or exams where such an exchange has been forbidden and plagiarism are violations of the standards set forth in this course and the Student Handbook in general. Appropriate penalties will be imposed, which could include failing the course and a referral to the Office of Judiciaries (refer to the Student Handbook for descriptions of unethical behavior and the potential penalties). Other potential violations include any action that deceives your professor or your classmates, and any action taken without due consideration of its possible harmful effect on others. I would not accept disrespect to me or to any of the students in the class. If you act in this way you will be asked to leave the classroom and you will loose any credits for the activity that takes place that day (including lab sessions and exams). You must have an appropriate conduct during the lab sessions.