Engineers Without Borders

2-27-2008 General meeting

February 27, 2008 at 8:49 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

Feburary 27rd, 2008, 7:00pm

Kelley 1001

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I. Announcements

• Meeting Dead Week Canceled
• Elections 2nd meeting next term
• Poker night and prize scouring
• Coordnator for interfacing with ORG’s

 

II. Dave Dixon from Hydrogen Club

Current situation has Fossil fuels sourcig most of our energy needs. Energy needs are going to increase overall in upcoming years, mostly in developing countries. Fossil fuels already have, or will peak soon.

CUrrent solar usage of solar energy ~ 13 TW. There are many different modes for collecting solar energy: cyanobacteria, wind and solar volatics.

Hydrogen, produced by cyanobacteria, would serve as a “battery” for solar energy. Currently our best efficiencies for processing hydrogen are ~ 40-60% electrical efficiency. Issues: storage of hydrogen and catalyst in fuel cell. There are currently many fuel cell cars in testing phase. Currently H2 production uses Natural Gas. Biggest hurdles are: economical production, storage, transport, materials for fuel cells and public acceptance. Payoffs: low carbon, effient, small scae utilization, lots of resources.

Their Research incloves phototrophic cyanbacteria. They have a hydrogenase that makes hydrogen, but need to be in oxygen deficient environment. There are 4 approaches to engineering them: metabolic engineering, directed evolution, thermo tolerance, and solid state encapsulation.

Dave works on encapsulating the bacteria in a silica sol-gel. Binding the cells in this silica bead arrests their growth, so they output their energy in hydrogen instead of growth. They have thin-film membranes that only allow hydrogen, for separation of that from other outputs. This research has been going on on campus for 7 years.

For more information email Dave Dickson at dicksond@engr.orst.edu or Liz Burrows at burrowse@engr.orst.edu. The hydrogen club has meetings Wednesdays 4-5.