ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- Creators: Phelan, Patrick
One way of reducing cooling and heating energy in residential buildings is by allowing the centralized HVAC unit to supply conditioned air to only occupied portions of the house by applying smart HVAC zoning. According to the United States Energy Information Administration [3], the percentage of houses equipped with centralized HVAC units is over 70%, which makes this thesis applicable to the majority of houses in the United States. This thesis proposes to implement HVAC zoning in a smart way to eliminate all human errors, such as leaving the AC unit on all day, which turns out to be causing a serious amount of energy to be wasted.
The total amount of energy that could be saved by implementing the concepts presented in this thesis in all single-family houses in the U.S. is estimated to be about 156 billion kWh annually. This amount of energy reduction is proportional to the electricity bills and the amount of dollars paid annually on energy that is technically being wasted.
For most electrochemical processes the oxygen reduction is very vita reaction. Pt loading in the electrocatalyst contributes towards the total cost of electrochemical devices. Reducing the Pt loading in electrocatalysts with high efficiency is important for the development of fuel cell technologies. To this end, this thesis work reports the approach to lower down the Pt loading in electrocatalyst based on N-doped carbon nanotubes derived from Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks (ZIF-67) for oxygen reduction. This electrocatalyst perform with higher electrocatalytic activity and stability for oxygen reduction in fuel cell testing. The electrochemical properties are mainly due to the synergistic effect from N-doped carbon nanotubes derived from ZIF and Pt loading. The strategy with low Pt loading forecasts in emerging highly active and less expensive electrocatalysts in electrochemical energy devices.
This thesis focuses on: (i) methods to obtain greater power density by optimizing content of wet-proofing agent (PTFE) and fine-grained, hydrophobic, microporous layer (MPL); (ii) modeling full factorial analysis of PEMFC for evaluation with experimental results and predicting further improvements in performance; (iii) methods to obtain high levels of performance with low Pt loading electrodes based on N-doped carbon nanotubes derived from ZIF-67 and Pt.