{"id":1595,"date":"2011-06-23T19:53:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T19:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2011-06-23T19:53:17","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T19:53:17","slug":"fuel-cell-lab-opened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1595","title":{"rendered":"Fuel cell lab opened"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1596\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><strong><\/strong><strong><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1596\" href=\"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?attachment_id=1596\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1596\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1596\" title=\"sciencejosfuelcell_dsc2343bew\" src=\"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/wp-content\/uploads\/sciencejosfuelcell_dsc2343bew-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/strong><p id=\"caption-attachment-1596\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. P.V. Aravind some days before the opening - Foto: Tomas van Dijk<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Together with the existing theory group at process &amp; energy, the  newly opened fuel cell lab now forms an integrated research centre on a  European level.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Red and blue portocabins behind the process &amp; energy hall form  the modest housing for the group&#8217;s new equipment. Assistant professor,  Dr P.V. Aravind, from Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering,  explains the set-up. The largest installation contains a stack of fuel  cells running on a mixture of gases that can be chosen from a mixing  panel on the other side. A smaller set-up tests single fuel cells and in  yet another assembly single anodes can be monitored while precisely  analysing the electrochemical processes.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The objects of study here  are solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which are tile-like devices that  transform gas directly into electricity. Inside, fuel and air flow on  opposite sides of the ceramic (solid oxide) electrolyte. As fuel is  &#8216;burnt&#8217; at the anode under high temperatures (500 \u2013 1000 degrees  Celsius), electrons flow from anode to cathode through an outside  circuit. In practice, a number of fuel cells is assembled in a &#8216;stack&#8217;  to arrive at usable voltages and power levels.<\/p>\n<p>Aravind is glad  the TU has taken over the equipment from ECN, the national energy  research centre, which last year was forced to limit its activities as a  consequence of budget cuts. Aravind says the acquired equipment nicely  complements the activities of the group&#8217;s theorists in thermodynamics,  electrochemistry and computational fluid dynamics. The new lab enables  them to work in &#8216;an integrated manner&#8217; on both computations and  experiments. \u201cNot many universities have this combination,\u201d Aravind  says, smiling with barely disguised pride.<\/p>\n<p>The group is already  working with colleagues from Imperial College London and various  industrial groups, some of who will deliver lectures at the group&#8217;s  opening conference on Thursday, organised together with the Dutch  engineers&#8217; association, Kivi-Niria.<\/p>\n<p>Ambitions for SOFCs are that  they can be used to convert (bio) gases like methane, syngas, ammonia  (NH3) and\/or hydrogen efficiently into electricity in the next  generation power plants. The main current issues are to reduce costs and  to prolong lifetimes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"javascript:void(null);\">bit.ly\/sofc-lab <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Post  van klimaatblog <a href=\"javascript:void(null);\">Climategate.nl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Together with the existing theory group at process &#038; energy, the newly opened fuel cell lab now forms an integrated research centre on a European level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[45,186,395],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-delta","tag-aravind","tag-fuel-cells","tag-sofc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}