Alum sponsors clean hydrogen capstone project
Team 25020 members (from left) Lauren Goodrich, Utah Bryant, Luke Lange, Abdulwahab Mohammad Al-Qenaei, Daniel Kaitel and Christian Alcaraz use equipment owned by sponsor Arzon Solar at the Solar Zone at UA Tech Park. Member Eli Jacobson is not pictured.
First-time Interdisciplinary Capstone sponsors Arzon Solar and SEC Energy are moving toward a breakthrough in making hydrogen a renewable, safe and portable energy source. And Team 25020 is contributing to their progress.
The team is designing and building a small prototype of a system that will use solar power to generate and store hydrogen, then convert it into electricity – aiming to produce a daily total around 7% of what the average Tucson customer uses. Students will also create a detailed plan that would scale the project to generate up to 80 times the energy output.
Arzon Solar, a concentrated solar photovoltaic technology company, gave the team access to its solar generation equipment at the Solar Zone at UA Tech Park to create and test its system. When its founder and chief technology officer, Vahan Garboushian, was a University of Arizona ECE student, he knew his involvement wouldn’t end with graduation.
“I always thought, ‘I will be back to start a business or somehow contribute to the university,’” he said.
This capstone project is an early step for Arzon Solar and SEC to explore the commercial possibilities for clean hydrogen.