Everything in between

The culture shock has faded and I'm definitely beginning to adjust to life here in Magdeburg. I wanted to update everyone on what exactly I am doing here and what kind of research I am doing, now that I have figured that out myself after working for two weeks.

I am researching fuel cells as you may or may not now as my primary field of study. If you don't know anything about fuel cells I would recommend checking it out on wikipedia here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell, its pretty interesting stuff. Essentially, fuel cells are an option to replace car engines and use hydrogen as the fuel with the output as water (not the carbon dioxide and other not-so-good gases that are currently emitted from cars). It is a clean way to solve some energy problems. More specifically I'm researching what is a good way to make hydrogen. I do this by making a computer program using the equations I am given an then let the computer do all the calculations and tell me how much hydrogen I can make according the equations I'm using. That is pretty much what I am doing in a nutshell. If you want more technical details then continue reading on, if not then just skip this section.


Technical stuff (diagram by altfuels.org):
The method by which I am "making" hydrogen is called autothermal reforming. I say "making" because I am not making anything, I am just simulating everything via the computer program called MATLAB. The reforming process is an important part to getting the hydrogen we need to the actual fuel cell. Right now, as a temporal solution to getting the hydrogen to our cars, methane (or natural gas) would be used to be put into the car like gasoline. The methane would then go to the reformer. Here the gas hits the catalyst, mixes with oxygen and about 4 to 8 different chemical reactions take place, yielding about 70% hydrogen and the rest is carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water. The carbon monoxide goes through another reaction that converts it to carbon dioxide and more hydrogen later in the process to "clean" the gases. Many different equations need to be considered during such a process. This includes taking into consideration heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid dynamics, chemical equilibria, and chemical kinetics. I have to combine all these into my MATLAB code and make it work correctly. Suffice it to say, I have plenty of work ahead of me. It's definitely an enjoyable job as I can see direct application to a lot of principles that I have been learning at college, but its not necessarily easy.


Other stuff:
The weather here has been very nice. Crisp, cool, and clear. The temperature hasn't been above 75 degrees Fahrenheit and its only sprinkled a couple of times. One thing that has amazed me here in Germany is that grass isn't cut very often. Foliage is usually just left to grow wild. However, there are many wild rose bushes and flowers that grow all over. Its not uncommon to smell the sweet aroma of flowers while walking around.


The FIFA Soccer World Cup is like the kind of like NFL Playoffs or even Super Bowl. Everyone gets excited for the games and few aren't behind a T.V. when Germany is playing a game. Its a pretty exciting time to be here and I've definitely enjoyed it.