With the world moving more towards environmental sustainability and no shortage of community members to take on the task, the wonderful folks over at Enapter challenged the GrabCAD community to design a water trap for an AEM electrolyzer.
When most people think of renewable energy, their minds default to maybe solar panels or wind turbines. However, the energy produced from renewable sources needs to be stored, and that is where hydrogen comes in. Green hydrogen is produced via water splitting using renewable energy. The stored energy can be released by turning hydrogen back into water. This makes green hydrogen an essential component for the decarbonization of the energy world.
Enapter is a company that focuses on creating a world where fossil fuels are no longer needed and where green hydrogen is affordable to everyone!
“We are glad to see how many students and young professionals are interested in hydrogen and renewable energy. The challenge topic was quite specific – a water trap for hydrogen stream output from an AEM electrolyser, and it requires knowledge in specific engineering disciplines.”
Enapter Challenge Winners
First Place: Enapter challenge watertrap
“Applying a layer of graphene with LPCVD will improve the heat transfer 4 times compared to a ‘non-graphene-metal’. This is because the graphene stimulates the dropwise condensation instead of the film condensation.”
“A simple and yet very creative and innovative design. We really like the nanotechnology approach. The design offers some promise of improved performance, but is unlikely to come close to the target as condensation is limited by ambient temperature. Excellent execution of the model and report writing.” -- Enapter
Second Place: SPM Water Trap
“The design approach discussed here is compatible with any improvements made to current condenser module (preferably non electric solutions to keep overall system efficiency better) and also promisingly effective in removing moisture content from the hydrogen to far below 1000 ppm with all the advantages stated above,” explains Renveer A R
“A creative approach that offers considerable performance increase. The concept with the SPM is particularly interesting.” -- Enapter
Third Place: Enapterchallenge watertrap
“This design is focused to increase the separating efficiency of the actual water trap. A cooling system has been added and a continuous purging system without moving parts.”
Enaptor greatly appreciated that “The "less component is better" principle gives this design great manufacturability. It allows a lost-cost mass production of the components.”
For these challenge winners, Enapter expresses that “We saw some really interesting ideas from the participants. Many of the concepts, especially those from the finalists, have the potential to be developed into devices of various scales and for different systems”
Later in the future we may yet see these very designs be implemented, only time will tell!
The Next Challenge from Enapter
Enapter is continuing to call upon the GrabCAD community for solutions and creative ideas for a sustainable and clean tomorrow in their current challenge: Enapter Challenge: Design for impact – A Green Hydrogen Future!
For this challenge, Enapter is challenging the Community “to design creative devices and systems for hydrogen applications that will power a green energy future.”
Enapter has high hopes about their second challenge saying, “We are presenting a much broader topic range for the community. It is more inclusive for participants from any field of profession to contribute to the green hydrogen future. Anyone who has the skills and creativity can take their action and design for impact!”
