The Flight and First Day

We flew Swiss Air direct from O'Hare to Zurich.  If you ever get a chance to fly this airline, do it!  Definitely worth the little extra we paid.  The service was excellent and they kept us well fed throughout the journey.  As you may know I get crabby when I'm hungry, so that was a very good thing for me.

^Our plane.
 
The aircraft we flew on was an A330-300.  Pretty new looking inside with a 2-4-2 seating configuration.  I had an aisle seat in the middle section.  Once we took off, the crew brought us small bags of chex mix and came around with drinks.  About two hours after takeoff came dinner.  There was either chicken or pasta.  I had the chicken, which came with vegetables and mashed potatoes, and it was good.  The pasta was tortellini, which Nick and Will had.  In addition to the main course, we also got a small salad, a piece of cheese, a roll, and a brownie.  After dinner they brought around coffee for dessert.  Another nice thing was that they had free wine, so I had a glass with dinner.

I tried to sleep some, and was somewhat successful.  I couldn't seem to fall asleep unless I was listening to music, so every once in a while a song would be louder than the previous one and wake me up.  But I think I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep off and on throughout the flight.  About 2 hours before we landed, the crew brought us hot towels to wipe our hands and faces.  That felt wonderful after being on the plane for about 7 hours at that point.  Then they brought breakfast, which consisted of orange juice, yogurt, a croissant, and a drink.

When we finally landed in Zurich, the first thing I noticed was how quiet the airport was compared to O'Hare.  It wasn't super busy, but it still seemed very quiet for the amount of people there.  Our luggage came quickly, and we didn't even get stopped in customs.  I guess if you have nothing to declare they don't usually stop you. 

 ^A view from the train at the airport station.
 
We took a train from the airport to Brugg, a city near where we are staying.  There we stopped and had lunch at an outdoor restaurant.  I had some kind of sausage that I forgot the name of, and the team all shared a plate of french fries.  After lunch we took the bus from Brugg to Villigen, which is the village PSI is in.

^The Guesthouse
 
Arriving at PSI, we checked into the guesthouse where we are staying.  My room is on the third floor.  It's pretty simple, but good enough.  There is a sink and vanity in the entryway, and then the room opens up a little and has a bed, nightstand, shelves, refrigerator, closet, and desk.

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^Coming into the room.

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^Sink and vanity.

  ^Looking into the rest of the room.

 ^Shelves, fridge, and closet.

 ^Bed and nightstand.

Being on the top floor, my room gets a little warm.  It was pretty hot yesterday, but today it's a bit better in here.  It helps to have the door open to get the air moving since there is no fan. Dr. Palumbo says it is normally cooler than this, so hopefully the weather will get more normal soon.

Last night we went grocery shopping.  There is a small grocery store in Villigen so we went there.  Normally we will go to Brugg since there is more of a selection, but this was enough to get us food for the week.  For dinner we went to one of the cafeterias at PSI.  There is a larger one on the east side of the river and a small one on the west side (where we work).  We went to the east side one last night, called the Oase.  I had the salad bar, which was really good because they have a bunch of different meats and cheeses to try.

^The crate our reactor is in.
 
Today we started our first day of work.  Learned about safety, got introduced to the people working in the solar furnace, opened up the crate to make sure nothing broke in transit, set up the data acquisition system, and started building up the platform to put the reactor on.  We had lunch at the smaller cafeteria.  I had a salad and a corn cream soup, which was tasty.  Tonight we are going to a pizza place that Dr. Palumbo always takes the team to on the first day, but we couldn't go last night because they are closed on Mondays.

I hope you are enjoying reading, and I appreciate reading all of your comments!

--Leanne

An Introduction

Hello to all reading and welcome to my first blog post!  I'm making this blog so that friends and family back home can all keep up on my adventures in Switzerland.

An introduction to STEP

I'm working as a research assistant this summer on the Solar Thermal Electrolysis Project, or STEP, at Valparaiso University.  I've been working on the project with Dr. Palumbo since September 2008.  This past school year I also worked on it as my senior design project.

So what exactly is STEP?  In a nutshell, we are studying the production of zinc from zinc oxide using solar energy.  Why do we want to do that?  Currently zinc is produced industrially by burning a lot of fossil fuels, which creates pollution and is also nonrenewable.  We want to show that substituting solar energy for the fossil fuels is a feasible way of creating zinc.  In addition to being used as a commodity (to galvanize steel, etc.), zinc can also be used as a fuel, either as is in a zinc-air fuel cell or by reacting it with water to produce hydrogen.  The best thing about either of those methods is that you get zinc oxide back as a byproduct, which you can put back in the solar reactor to get zinc again.

With STEP we are working at very high temperatures, ranging from 1700 to 2800 degrees F.  The reason we work with high temperatures is this:  in order for the zinc oxide to split into zinc and oxygen, a little electricity is needed.  As the temperature of the reaction increases, the amount of electricity that needs to be supplied decreases.  In fact, at just over 3600 degrees F the reaction can occur with no electricity whatsoever.  However, we stay down below 2800 degrees because of material restrictions.  As the temperature gets higher, it becomes more difficult to find materials that can withstand it.

To study the process, we built a solar reactor.  The reactor itself has gone through several iterations as we discovered various problems while running experiments.  The solar reactor operates as follows:  sunlight passes through a window at the front of the reactor and enters a small hole called the aperture.  It heats up a large graphite block that we call the core and melts the electrolyte/zinc oxide mixture in our crucible.  A small amount of electricity is supplied by the electrodes, and the zinc and oxygen flow up chimneys and through a cooling system.  The zinc collects on copper water cooling coils and in filters attached to the cooling system.

Our goal for the project is to study how changing different design and operating variables affect how the reactor performs.  Variables we can change include electrolyte composition, electrode material, crucible material, operating temperature, current density, and how much ZnO we mix in with the electrolyte.  The two performance parameters we look at are the back work ratio and the substituted solar fraction.  The back work ratio is a measure of how much electricity we put in to get zinc versus how much we would get out if we reacted the zinc with air in a fuel cell at room temperature.  The substituted solar fraction tells us basically how well we are using the sun's energy.

So what does this have to do with Switzerland?

In order for the reactor to reach high temperatures, the sunlight must be concentrated by a parabolic mirror called a concentrator.  Paired with the concentrator is an array of flat mirrors called the heliostat that tracks the sun as it moves across the sky and directs sunlight into the concentrator.  Our reactor sits at the focus of the concentrator.  The heliostat-concentrator pairing is called a solar furnace.

We are traveling to Switzerland because Valparaiso University doesn't yet have a solar furnace.  We are going to be working at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen, Switzerland.  Here's a picture of their solar furnace facility:

(Image Source:  http://solar.web.psi.ch/data/facilities/?tasc)

VU will eventually have a solar furnace facility; one is being planned to coincide with construction of the new addition to Gellersen.  Another team of students is working with Dr. Duncan and Dr. Nudehi this summer to finish designing the heliostat and concentrator and begin building them.

When are you leaving!?

Everyone's favorite question!  I am leaving tomorrow for Zurich, flying direct from O'Hare.  Our flight leaves at 7:20 pm central time, and we will arrive in Zurich on Monday at 11 am local time.   I'll return to the US on August 6.

I hope you have enjoyed learning a little about what I'm working on.  If you have any questions please ask!

--Leanne

*Edit:  I made it so you can post comments without having an account.  Just make sure you let me know who you are!*