Fuel Cell VOC Filtration Monitoring System

Fuel cells exist as an alternative and cleaner power source option to fossil fuels, but as a product they tend to be a delicate mix of expensive, hard to replace, and easy to break. One of the ways they’re most susceptible to damage is airborne contaminants, with things like smoke, exhaust, and solid particles in the air being able to make a single fuel cell completely useless via irreversible internal damage. To prevent this kind of damage, adequate filters are needed to keep the internals of the fuel cell protected, but testing said filters is a roadblock on its own. Currently, it costs our client around $5,000 per test per filter to test the effectiveness of various air filters when it comes to safeguarding their fuel cells. Our team’s test stand design would negate those costs almost entirely and make testing easy and efficient in terms of both time and cost, as our design includes easy access to the filter housing so multiple filters can be swapped in and out for individual tests without the need of separate setups, as well as integrated data collection and readout to allow faster and easier-to-understand results.

Background
=Specifications= The filtration test stand needs to meet several design specifications in order to be both usable and reliable for testing filters for fuel cells. The test stand will utilize low cost air quality sensors and a gas injection system.

Must be able to measure:
 * Mass air flow
 * Inlet and outlet air temperature
 * Inlet and outlet gas concentraion

Test stand will inlcude:
 * A primary air mover
 * Applicable flow control
 * Appropriate ducting
 * Gas injection system
 * Testing of multiple filters
 * Data acquisiton system

=Design Developments=

Design Validation
=Team Members=

=Additional Documentation=

Project Schedule

Meeting Minutes

Budget