(329c) Design and Experimental Investigation in the Mass and Energy Balance Course

A semester long project was implemented in the sophomore mass and energy balance course including the steps of contemplation of the underlying theory, simulation, experimental experimental investigation, modeling, and evaluation, and product design. The objective was to qualitatively and quantitatively describe the energy and mass balances in a circuit comprised of an AA battery connected in series with a resistor. The design aspect included using data and understanding gained from the experimental investigation of the temperature profiles of this system to design a battery of the same chemistry to power a 10W light bulb for 1 hour. The scale-up included directly scaling up the masses of anode and cathode materials as well as consideration of constraints on how battery efficiency was linked to the mass transfer and cross sectional area for mass transfer within the battery.