This summer the University of Connecticut Center for Clean Energy Engineering (C2E2) hosted four young engineers from Europe who conducted research on the use of fuel cells in maritime applications. They were sponsored by the Lürssen Foundation and hosted as part of the UConn Global Hydrogen Summer Experience program, a new initiative to share UConn’s expertise in hydrogen technologies with international collaborators in the shipping sector and beyond.
Shipping plays a critical part in the global economy. Close to 90% of international trade ships goods overseas. Naval ships, fishing fleets, and pleasure craft are also abundant, and some ships are beginning to use fuel cells in addition to burning more traditional fossil fuels. The sector is ripe for efficiency innovations.
The fellowships are funded by the Lürssen Foundation, a global non-profit focused on innovation in the maritime industry. The scholars came from Croatia, Germany, and the Netherlands, and first visited Lürssen, a luxury yacht company. They worked with engineers at the company to design projects related to hydrogen and fuel cell usage on ships. The scholars were then hosted in Storrs by UConn’s Global Training and Development Institute in collaboration with C2E2. They spent a month at C2E2 this summer, working with UConn fuel cell experts on projects studying the effects of different fuels and system designs on efficiency in marine applications of high temperature fuel cells, engines, and HVAC systems.
“The UConn Global Hydrogen Summer Experience is scholarly collaboration at its best,” says UConn President Radenka Maric, an internationally recognized expert in clean energy technology. “Working with engineers in private industry as well as UConn faculty, this international group of scholars now has a holistic understanding of how shipping can be made more efficient and sustainable. Initiatives like this one demonstrate UConn’s global reach, as well as our role in bringing public and private expertise together.”
The scholars each pursued a different research project. Janik Grafelmann, an industrial engineering and management graduate from Bremen, Germany, modeled how machine learning could be used to increase the efficiency of onboard HVAC systems. He worked with Ugur Pasaogullari, a UConn professor in mechanical engineering.
Roko Perinic, a mechanical engineering student at TU Graz, originally from Opatija, Croatia, simulated a high-temperature fuel cell with flow field plate design optimized for marine operations. He was co-mentored by Pasaogullari and Jasna Jankovic, a professor in materials science and engineering at UConn.
Catrien de Vries, currently pursuing a masters degree in naval architecture with a specialization in marine engineering at Delft University of Technology, evaluated how compact waste heat recovery systems could enhance onboard fuel efficiency. She was advised by Ioulia Valla, a chemical engineering professor at UConn.
Marin Versic, an engineer with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Rijeka in Croatia and a master’s in energy engineering from Aalborg University in Denmark, examined how alternative fuels including methanol and ammonia could power a high temperature proton exchange fuel cell system and simultaneously produce hydrogen, all within the constraints of a maritime environment. He worked with Jankovic. The students were also mentored by C2E2 graduate students Mohammad Osat and Vladimir Marosz.
The students also attended a short summer course on hydrogen technologies offered by Mariah Batool and Sara Pedram, both researchers in the Jankovic lab.
In addition to pursuing their research projects alongside C2E2 faculty and graduate students, the scholars visited Yale University as well as Mott Corporation and NEL Corporation, both Connecticut engineering companies and longterm research partners of UConn. They also got to see a bit of New England, visiting Newport, R.I., and nearby beaches. Most of the students had never been in the U.S. before.
They will continue working on their hydrogen and fuel cell projects this autumn. And the relationships they forged with UConn faculty and staff will continue.
“We are proud of what we have achieved together. These will be our ambassadors of what UConn and Lürssen can achieve as a group. On behalf of all of us, a big thank you,” says Teuta Duletic, managing director of the Lürssen Design Center Kvarner.
The UConn Global Hydrogen Summer Program and Lürssen fellowships are an early highlight of UConn’s initiatives to connect and collaborate with other institutions in the energy research universe. Another prominent initiative is REACH2, short for Research and Education Accelerated by Connections in Clean Hydrogen, a large global network of universities, industry and national labs working collaboratively to advance the science and deployment of hydrogen technologies. REACH2 supports a platform to share data and scientific tools, hosts workshops, and runs an exchange program to allow students to visit and learn at labs of other network members. REACH2 has opened up new opportunities for UConn to partner with European institutions to fund graduate students as well.
“REACH2 is our new UConn-led initiative that enables global collaboration in the field of hydrogen. This is more important than ever, leveraging expertise, resources and facilities of all its members,” says Jankovic, the founder of REACH2.
