It’s in your very near future. You are behind the wheel of a sleek new vehicle, a Honda Clarity perhaps, cruising down the freeway at 70mph, maybe slightly faster. You don’t want a speeding ticket.
You’re used to the stillness by now, and Bridgestone has even quieted the whine of the tires.
Thanks to nanotechnology, you’ll travel 300 miles before needing to refuel. Say hello to the power of hydrogen fuel cells and goodbye to OPEC.
Add the synergy developing between the scientific advances at UC Riverside and the hands-on technology coming online at the San Bernardino Community College District, and the combination promises big benefits for the Inland Empire.
Your engine lasts 10 times longer, produces more energy, is more durable, uses one-fourth the platinum for its catalyst than the earlier models, and it’s dramatically cheaper.
It was born in the lab of UC Riverside scientist Yushan Yan, a professor and chairman of the Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department in the Bourns College of Engineering. Yan is hard at work in his lab and making substantial progress on a practical automotive fuel cell with nano design.
Fuel-cell powered Hondas have been on the highways for a while, leased to celebrities and other high-profile people. But the power plants are expensive and suffer in performance and durability, scientists say.
Nanotechnicians who will assemble the fuel cell with nano design from Yan’s design could well have received their education at the Donald F. Averill Applied Technology Training Center of San Bernardino Community College District, which is using $2.4 million in grants and training funds to set up its Center for the Advancement of Nanotechnology, dubbed NanoCenter.
Professor Yan’s practical, no-nonsense style – along with his mind – helped propel his career like a rocket from assistant professor in 1998 when he came to UC Riverside, to department chairman today, and one of only 10 honored as university scholar at the institution.
“My philosophy?” Yan said. “I’m an engineer and a scientist. I like to find a good idea and bring it to the marketplace, not something trivial. I have seven (ideas) in the pipeline.”
And part of that pipeline leads to his fuel-cell work.
A fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce water and energy. The principle of the fuel cell has been around for more than a century.
It was discovered in 1839, Yan said, adding that it has taken science this long to catch up and put it to practical use.
He has been experimenting with platinum as a catalyst on carbon. Yan found, “It has a lot of problems, it’s not very stable and it likes to aggregate.
“The surface can be dissolved from carbon corrosion,” he said.
Now he’s using platinum and carbon nanotubes. “This time around we are finally going tubular,” he said.
The platinum had a tendency to clump on the carbon surface and lose its potency. When Yan used nanotubes and thinly coated them inside and out with platinum, they became more efficient, and there was less aggregation, he said.
After the scientists work their magic, it’s up to nanotechnicians to put it to work. UCR and the Community College District have partnered to develop a 90-hour curriculum of training, which will take place partly at the NanoCenter and partly at Bourns. It will include nano characterization, micro/nanofabrication, materials characterization, device characterization, electronic devices and optoelectronic devices.
Heading the community college district program are Albert Maniaol, director, and Matthew Isaac, executive director.
To help understand work on a nano scale, consider that a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter and a carbon nanotube like those used by Yan, for example, is 2 to 3 nanometers in diameter and 10 to 20 microns in length. A micron is one-millionth of a meter. A meter is 39.37 inches in length.
Yan’s fuel cells can do more than power a car, although that is probably the primary goal. They can be used to power smaller things too, such as cellular phones and laptop computers. They could also power your home.