fairfolio
Saved Projects

DIY Fuel Cells: Which Is Mightier: the Pen or the Sword?

CSEF · 2015 Electronics & Electromagnetics

Ryan D. Rusch · Westfield School, Porterville, Tulare County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The U.S. Department of Energy is constantly looking for ways to have power while not polluting the environment. One way to do this is by using fuel cells. Which type of electrode conducts better in water? Electrodes are 2 pieces of metal in water where a current gets sent through in a fuel cell to combine hydrogen and oxygen to make power and water. In the regenerative fuel cell that I am using, the electrodes separate the hydrogen and oxygen in water so that the hydrogen and oxygen will combine again, creating power. My project tests which type of electrode, silver or pencil graphite, will conduct better. Methods/Materials I test the conductivity by seeing which electrode's voltage decays slower in a mixture of 1 part salt to 27 parts water. I timed the voltage and its decay rate with a stopwatch. Results I hypothesized that silver electrodes would conduct better because silver is a highly conductive metal, and therefore, the voltage will decay slower in water. My results did not agree with my hypothesis, and the pencil graphite conducted better than the silver. Conclusions/Discussion The silver voltage decayed faster possibly because of the tarnish build up around the silver. The graphite does not tarnish, corrode, or rust because of the wood surrounding the pencil. I learned from this project that the pen(cil) is mightier than the sword (silver)!

Summary statement

I learned that pencil graphite is a better electrode than silver when used inside a makeshift regenerative fuel cell.

Help received

My mother helped attach the cloud wallpaper, and my father helped structure the fuel cell.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2015 Electronics & Electromagnetics · Entry J0924

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google