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Batteries and Fuel Cells for Electric Vehicles

Level: 4th year Materials Science and Engineering

Key Skills: Group working, communication and Independent Study

Assessment: Group report and presentation

This is a group activity involving the use of literature and web-based searching to produce a short report, and give a presentation on a subject related to ‘Batteries and Fuel Cells for Electric Vehicles’. This activity begins with three lectures which introduce you to this topic. These include an introduction to electrochemical cells and information on batteries and fuel cells.

Carry out a preliminary search of the web and the literature (using WoS) to identify areas of interest..

Select a topic: it must relate to batteries and/or fuel cells for electric vehicles, and include details of the materials technology involved. Here are a few suggestions

Batteries vs fuel cells for electric vehicles

Lithium batteries for Evs

Hybrid electric vehicles

Recent progress in PEMFCs for Evs

Developments in membranes for EV PEMFCs

Comparisons of EV technology for buses and passenger cars

Search the web and literature for information.

Credit will be given for a broad range of references, including web pages, magazine articles, and journal articles.

The work must include some reference to the details of materials and/or electrochemical processes that are involved in the technology

Assessment

Prepare a short talk and summary of your findings

The talk should be 10 minutes long:

Marks will be deducted if the talk is too long

Credit will be given for clear overheads

At the end of the talk, questions will be asked of other members of each group

(tips for giving effective presentations)

The summary should be up to three pages in length, +1 page containing a full list of sources and references. It should be word-processed. The format for references should be as follows:

A. N. Author and B. Author, Journal, Vol., page (year)

A. N Author, B. Author, and C. Author, Book Title, p. page, Publisher, City (year).

The references should either be numbered in the order in which they are cited (as numbers) in the text, or the citation in the text can read ‘(Author, year)’ and the references listed in alphabetical order of author names at the end. Web pages should also be listed at the end.

Credit will be given for a well-structured document with a clear in introduction and summary, and appropriate use of figures.(tips for writing reports)

The summary will be collected at the same time as the talk is given.

The marks for the combined talk and summary will comprise 20% of the module mark.

Each group will be asked to agree ‘effort’ marks that reflect the proportion contributed by each member of the group to the work.

Resources

http://electrochem.cwru.edu/estir/

http://fuelcellnetwork.bham.ac.uk/links.htm

http://uscar.org/techno/store.htm

http://www.alabc.org/

http://www.alexcommgrp.com/afv/evp.html

http://www.aqmd.gov/monthly/white.html

http://www.avere.org/home/en/default.html

http://www.ballard.com/