The Electrochemical Engine Center, founded in 1997 and directed by BEST co-director Chao-Yang Wang, conducts fundamental and applied research on fuel cells and advanced batteries for electric propulsion, stationary power generation and portable electronics. The ECEC has capabilities in fuel cells, batteries, hybrid-design, MEA fabrication, parallel computing and modeling labs. In addition, an array of experimental test equipment including F ourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Gas Chromatography, mass spectroscopy, high speed digital imaging, AC-impedance spectroscopy and environmental chamber for cold start studies are available.

Battery facilities include the Battery Manufacturing Laboratory as well as testing equipment like environmental chambers, Arbin battery testing stations, and many 3-electrode cells for testing cylindrical and prismatic batteries. Fuel cell fabrication facilities include a ball grinder, mixer-homogenizer, an automatic drawdown machine, a high-temperature hydraulic press, and manual and automatic spraying facilities. Fuel cell testing facilities include a number of Arbin and Teledyne fuel cell testing systems, Solartron Analytical equipment, a micro gas chromatograph and three environmental chambers. Modeling capabilities include fuel cell modeling using CFD Packages, Fluent, and Star-CD; computational facilities include a 50-node Beowulf cluster and a 32-node high performance Beowulf cluster.

For more information on the ECEC, visit its webpage at ecec.mne.psu.edu.