Polarization curves

We went to the electrochem lab to capture polarization curves for our zinc-air batteries. Internal resistance is a nice ~34.5 mOhms. The capacity of the load bank was 5A and our batteries were still going strong! We will have to scale down the batteries to see the end of our polarization curve. We were able to pull > 3W with each cell and can get more (how much more we don’t yet know). Thanks for reading!

Prototype batteries

The last couple weeks have been productive. We’ve designed our test batteries to determine an optimal size of battery for our purposes. What size do you think will be closest to optimal? 1, 4, 9, or 16 cm^2? Let us know on our facebook page.

Surface area relates to the amount of current we can draw from our batteries. Our current 5x5cm design gives more current than we can possibly draw from it so we’re starting to scale down.

Design tutorials

We have recently been holding tutorials to train the majority of our new members to use Solidworks software. For the tutorial, the new members designed some test batteries to be fabricated for optimizing battery size for our new car. The tutorial not only gave us the parts that we needed but allowed new members to design a part that will be fabricated on their first day of using Solidworks.

We’ve also been working on our next iodine clock. We don’t want to be over confident, but we think it’s going to be the kittens mittens. Look forward to seeing the fabricated prototypes in the coming months!