The development of new energy sources is one of the main tasks of the 21st century, as energy requirements increase, resources of coal, oil and gas decline, and climate change accelerates. Hydrogen technology is particularly important in this regard. Fuel cells allow electricity to be produced directly from hydrogen and oxygen. Their only waste product is water. The cells contained in our sets can do both: generate electricity and produce hydrogen. They allow all stages of the solar hydrogen cycle to be clearly explained through simple experiments. The laboratory outlines a simple principle, which works on small and large scales, and in doing so conserves resources and helps the environment. Numerous experiments and suggestions for using the equipment in the experiments can be found. The De Lorenzo GREEN KIT consisted smaller solar panels and wind turbines. It also had a small DC fan and motor. Generated energy can be directly coupled with these equipment and observe renewable energy being put to use. This system communicated through a USB cable with the LVDAC-EMS software that runs on the computer. This software can be used to obtain real-time data from the system and save/export data for further analysis.
A representative experiment uses an infrared camera to capture the two-dimensional temperature profile of a microfluidic heat exchanger for energy efficiency analysis. This experiment introduces students to the techniques of infrared imaging. Its subject of analysis is a microsystem instrumented with sensors and hosting microfluidic ‘circuits’ carrying heated liquids. The fluid flow can also be imaged with a visible imaging camera to make videos of the flow, and quantify flow characteristics. This shows the complementary and supplemental information provided by imaging in two spectral regions. Such microsystems are of technical interest for lab-on-a-chip technologies which seek to provide miniature, sustainable implementations of fluidic processes that are traditionally implemented on laboratory benches, or pilot plants at much larger scale. These systems will reduce consumption of materials, generation of waste, and use of energy.
