Project Leader:
Alan West
(acw17@columbia.edu)
Earth Institute Contact: Prof. Vijay Modi
EI Collaborators:
Vijay Modi
Klaus Lackner
Additional External Researchers:
Luc G. Fréchette
Jeff Koberstein,
Locations: Earth
Description:
The Center for Energy Conversion Technologies involves faculty from Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, and Earth and Environmental Engineering. The Center is seed-funded by the Columbia Earth Institute to drive advanced research in fuel cells, focusing on integrating system-level design with innovations in electrochemical materials and components. The strengths of the participating faculty lie in electrochemistry, synthesis and characterization of fuel-cell materials, fabrication of micro-power systems, simulation of fuel-cell systems, and energy systems design and environmental-impact analysis.
Fuel cells have demonstrated a potential for explosive growth in many applications, from battery replacement in cell phones and other portable electronics, to automotive power systems for transportation, to distributed electrical power generation for homes and businesses and even the production of baseline power at centralized plants. Although fuel cells have reached the stage of commercialization, there exists a variety of challenging research issues with potential to move the field dramatically forward. Materials issues such as conductivity, thermal stability and corrosion, catalysis problems such as low temperature activity and reactant selectivity, design issues such as heat and mass transfer optimization, and system and environmental integration issues are areas where the technical skills of the proposed-center faculty can be brought to bear.
EI Unit:
Earth Engineering Center (EEC)
Cross Cutting Themes:
Energy
Core Disciplines:
Engineering
Project Web Site:
http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/EECFuelcells.html
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