This article, by Caiti Lahue, is part of a series highlighting members of the Office of Sustainability’s Experts Database. In a collaboration with instructor Hannah Monroe’s course, LSC 561: Writing Science for the Public, students interviewed campus sustainability experts and produced short feature stories.
Despite the worldwide pursuit of green energy alternatives and low- to no-carbon emissions solutions over the past several decades, many large-scale industries remain firmly entrenched in their use of fossil fuels. Industries like steel production and cargo shipping have energy demands that exceed what wind, solar, or biofuels can currently provide, preventing a switch from unsustainable fossil fuels and the harmful carbon dioxide they produce. For these sectors, new technologies are needed.
That’s where Luca Mastropasqua and his lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering come in. They focus on developing hydrogen fuel cells as sources of green energy. These fuel cells produce electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen gas, which creates water vapor as a byproduct instead of carbon dioxide.
Fuel cells can produce their own fuel in a chemical process known as reverse electrolysis. When hydrogen and oxygen gas combine to form water, they give off excess energy in the form of heat and electricity. As the name implies, this is the opposite of how electrolysis normally occurs.
In the normal, “forward” direction, electricity provides the energy required to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Running the cell “in reverse” will produce energy so long as both gases are present. This is how it functions as a fuel cell. Running the cell “normally” recharges the cell in the same way as recharging a normal battery.
Mastropasqua’s interest in electrolysis fuel cells is twofold. The first is the unique combination of basic sciences within the fuel cell. Despite the name, “basic science” is not basic, nor easy to study. It refers to science dedicated to understanding how things work on a fundamental level. Physics is often a good example.
To fully understand and study these fuel cells, a researcher must understand many different fields of science, such as physics, chemistry, and material science. However, most scientists specialize in just one of these core concepts.
“I think there are people who do just material science or just electrochemistry, and I think for some of these technologies to succeed, we need to understand how all of them interact in the same device, in the same cell,” Mastropasqua said. “I think that’s why I’m in mechanical engineering: I’m trying to bring all those things together and understand them from a device perspective, or how they impact at the device level.”
The second aspect of Mastropasqua’s research is the practical application of these hydrogen fuel cells. To have a more sustainable society, we need to account for everything that an industry produces, not just the desired product.
“[W]e need to realize that everything we do — that it’s energy, that it’s manufacturing — produces externalities,” Mastropasqua said. “And we need to account for those externalities in every process that we have in our society.”
However, it will take more than just fuel cell research to bring renewable energy to large-scale industry.
“I think it’s really necessary to have people with different backgrounds tackle the same problem from different perspectives.” Mastropasqua said. “Those problems have so many different aspects to it that are regulatory — there is policy, there are law aspects, there are technical [and] scientific aspects to it. I think we need all those backgrounds and expertise.”
While Mastropasqua’s research focuses on the fundamentals of electrolysis and these hydrogen fuel cells, he understands there is much more research to be done.
“I think finding solutions to decarbonize industry would be great,” Mastropasqua said. “I don’t think there is going to be one solution. I’m not attached to any specific technology.”
“The goal is to find a solution that fits each specific application,” Mastropasqua added. “I don’t think there is going to be one technology that fits all.”