🏆 COE Sustainability Council Award

The objective of this project is to design a new more sustainable air filter for use in hydrogen fuel cells.

 

 

Team Members

Ryan Stough    Owen Kraisinger    Jared Brown    Matthew Shaw                        

 

Project Poster

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Project Video

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Project Summary

Overview

Volvo Penta has tasked this team with producing an innovative way to make a fuel cell filter more sustainable. In a fuel cell, many unwanted particulates are present in the intake air of the system such as Nitrous Oxide, Sulfur Dioxide, and Ammonia. These particulates can be extremely poisonous to the delicate internal components of the fuel cell and therefore must be effectively filtered out by as little as parts per billion standards. The current technology that is utilized for this filtering technique is activated carbon due to its very porous chemical makeup. While activated carbon will not always be readily available as time progresses, the team took the initiative to research a plethora of alternative filtering solutions to replace this current method. While this did not seem logistically feasible to eliminate activated carbon as a solution, the pursuing focus was to find ways to allow a longer lifespan of activated carbon to increase overall sustainability. This was done by compiling the strengths, findings, and creativity of the team to accomplish the primary goal to full completion.

Objectives

-To understand the lifecycle and sustainability of the current activated carbon fuel cell filter and to research and discover ways to increase its sustainability.

-Research the effectiveness of using water as a filtering method. Hydrogen fuel cells produce water as a byproduct. This wastewater could have the possibility of helping filter the particulate matter from the air before it enters the fuel cell membrane.
 
-Conduct an analysis comparing hydrogen fuel cell filters to those of internal combustion engines. This analysis will compare the cost, sustainability, and ease of use for the customer.

Approach

– Gathered input from the sponsor regarding exact air quality and product requirements. This information includes down to what particle size needs to be filtered out and which contaminants in the air are most harmful to the fuel cell.

– Investigate the current filtration technologies currently used for hydrogen fuel cells. See what the standards are for the current methods and how they are developed.

– Compare different filtering methods for ease of use, sustainability, cost, etc. Then use a Pugh Matrix to weigh the different criterium and use it to compare different methods and select a final method to pursue further.

– Using the final filtering method chosen from Pugh Matrix design a filtration system and perform simulations to validate the research.

Outcomes

– Research compiled on all technologies studied throughout the project and provided it to the sponsor for further development within Volvo Penta.

– Paired down finalists through simulations and experiments to identify which had true potential today and what others might need further development before an application like this could be plausible.

– Alumina Oxide paired with activated carbon was found to be the most viable solution after testing and ranking and it fulfilled our goals of increasing the sustainability of the current filtration setup while also not affecting the overall effectiveness of the filter.