On Friday, November 5, 1999, the Chem-E-Car Team with advisor Dr. Coronella was present to give a presentation of their powered fuel cell car. The presentation consisted of their experiences in Dallas, their ideas for the car itself, and a live test run for all of the undergraduate students to watch.

The team members gave the entire group a flavor of what Dallas was like for competition. They had stated by telling us what the purpose was for the competition. It consisted of a car the size that could not be bigger than a shoebox had to be propelled a given distance while carrying a certain weight of liquid. They were entirely unaware of the distance and weight of the liquid that needed to be carried before the competition. Once they arrived, they found out that the distance that the car needed to go was 75 feet and that the amount of water was 300 milliliters. For this they calibrated their machine as well as they could to be able to get the desired distance with the required amount of water. For the competition, there were several teams from around the United States. They were given two separate runs to be able to give the needed distance. For the first run, the team did not do so well; they were very far off of their wanted distance. The other teams in the competition did not achieve great distances either. For the second run the UNR team came within a foot of the 75-foot distance. Dr. Coronella and the team thought that they had won knowing that the only team that was left in the competition was the University of Michigan. The car of the University of Michigan straddled the 75-foot mark on their last run and won the competition. The ecstatic Coronella and team were crushed. However, despite the loss the entire team was still extremely pleased with the final results of being in second place. The entire team described their trip to Dallas as remarkable as they had a great time competing.

The team then talked about the modeling and design of their chemically powered car. Their car consisted of a base made of lightweight Plexiglas and was powered by the chemical reaction of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and aluminum to achieve the reaction of:

This reaction was complemented by the rate law that was used:

The hydrogen product for this reaction is what actually powered the car. The hydrogen gas molecules were filtered through a proton membrane and this provided the power to turn the complex pulley system. Because this car had to be built within a certain budget the car was not made for looks, as the team members described, but for efficiency. They then discussed some aspects of the car for running. They said that the car needed to be primed for about 40 minutes to about one hour to get the best efficiency and that the best temperature was about 45 degrees Celsius with the NaOH concentration being 7.5M. They also described numerable problems that they faced throughout the entire time of the car's creation such as faulty ideas and bad calibration attempts. After all of the work they became close to achieving ideal efficiency for the calibrations. Visual references were also displayed on the chalkboard for better illustration.

After their presentation of the car's design the group went outside for a demonstration. The car was not primed entirely but nonetheless the car was still mobile. With the addition of the sodium hydroxide the car was on its way down the hallway outside of room LME 313. All of the students and faculty enjoyed the demonstration. After the demonstration the team pointed out their poster that they had made for the competition and also described how the poster was part of their final grade for the competition in Dallas. The seminar ended on a note that all interested freshman, sophomores, and juniors should think about joining the team for next year's competition so UNR can take first place.
 

Submitted by:

Craig Pribila
Class of 2003