Charles Chamberlin

Humboldt State University | HSU · Department of Environmental Resources Engineering

Combustion of biomass for electricity production is a pathway for utilizing woody residues that would otherwise be considered waste. Woody residues are often stored in large piles prior to combustion, and greenhouse gas emissions from this storage phase are understudied and often assumed to be negligible. This study investigates the effects of thre...

Floating offshore wind is being considered in northern California as indicated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s issuance of a lease consideration in the Humboldt Call Area. Humboldt County offers access to this enormous resource, but local electric load and transmission are limited. The potential impacts of offshore wind generators at thr...

In rotating screw conveyors both the average and the distribution of the residence time influence the extent and the uniformity of the transformation. Experimenters have applied two distinct experimental approaches to obtain the residence time distribution of granular solids in longitudinal reactors: 1) measuring the mass flow rate of product at th...

An All Power Labs PP20 gasifier generation set (Berkeley, Calif.) was tested to evaluate its suitability for powering biomass conversion technologies (BCT) at remote forest operations sites. Feedstock of the species tanoak (), coast redwood (), and Douglas fir () were tested at moisture contents of 15% and 25% (wet basis). The PP20 was connected to...

A semi-mobile torrefaction and densification pilot plant was constructed in order to determine ideal operating conditions and evaluate briquette quality and throughput rate using forest residuals as the input feedstock. Experiments were conducted at various conditions with feedstock moisture content ranging from 4% to 25% (wet basis), reactor resid...

Two commercial biochar production machines – a single-auger unit and a larger dual-auger version – were operated to evaluate feedstock specifications, biochar quality, throughput rates, and emissions profiles. Biochar was produced from woody biomass feedstocks of various species, contamination levels, comminution methods, and moisture contents. Fee...

We compare different cogeneration system scenarios for efficient energy production from bagasse fuel in an Indonesian sugar and ethanol factory. These scenarios include the use of condensing-extraction steam turbines, variable speed electric drives for process equipment, measures to reduce low pressure steam demand for process needs, and two advanc...

In 1990 the Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) installed a PV array comprised of 192 ARCO M-75 modules. Prior to installation, SERC measured the performance of each module. For the past 20 years the array has continued to operate in a cool, marine environment. The performance of each module was re-evaluated in 2001 and again last year in 2010. Th...

Energy-efficient generation of hydrogen at high pressure would aid the transition to a hydrogen economy by eliminating the need for mechanical compression, a costly and inefficient parasitic load found in existing hydrogen generation systems. The Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) has worked since 2001 on the development of a proton exchange memb...

In 1990 the Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) installed a PV array comprised of 192 ARCO M-75 modules. Prior to installation, Zoellick carefully measured module performance and reported average peak power at normal operating cell temperature (NOCT) to be 39.88 W, which was 14.1% lower than the 46.4 W nameplate rating. For the past 11 years the a...

The Schatz Energy Research Center built and operated a PEM fuel cell power system to supply back-up power to a remote photovoltaic-powered radio-telephone repeater. The fuel cell starts automatically when solar insolation is insufficient to maintain the state-ofcharge of the system’s battery. A cellular modem permits remote monitoring and control....

The Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) in cooperation with the Yurok Tribe has designed, built, installed and operated a stand-alone power system integrating photovoltaic and proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technologies to operate a remote radiotelephone repeater station. Located within Redwood National Park in northwestern California, U...

We report on the performance, safety, and maintenance issues of a photovoltaic (PV) power plant which uses hydrogen energy storage and fuel cell regenerative technology. The facility, located at the Humboldt State University (HSU) Telonicher Marine Laboratory, has operated intermittently since June 1991, and in August 1993 went into full-time, auto...

An empirical equation was shown to fit the experimental cell potential vs. current density data for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), at several temperatures, pressures, and oxygen compositions in the cathode gas mixture. The exponential term compensates for the mass‐transport regions of the vs. plot; i.e., the increase in slo...

Experimental and modeling results on the effects of mismatch losses in photovoltaic arrays are presented. Field tests conducted on each of the 192 modules are used to describe the variation in the properties of production run photovoltaic modules. Module specific estimates of a five-parameter module model are obtained by nonlinear regression. Mathe...

The design of a stand-alone renewable energy system using hydrogen (H2) as the energy storage medium and a fuel cell as the regeneration technology is reported. The system being installed at the Humboldt State University Telonicher Marine Laboratory consists of a 9.2 kW photovoltaic (PV) array coupled to a high pressure, bipolar alkaline electrolys...

We report preliminary operational results for a photovoltaic (PV) energy system which uses hydrogen as the storage medium and a fuel cell as the regeneration technology. The system installed at the Humboldt State University Telonicher Marine Laboratory consists of a 9.2 kW PV array coupled to a high pressure, bipolar, alkaline electrolyzer. The arr...

Two sampling designs are developed for the improvement of parameter estimate precision in nonlinear regression, one for when there is uncertainty in the parameter values, and the other for when the correct model formulation is unknown. Although based on concepts of optimal design theory, the design criteria emphasize efficiency rather than optimali...

The relative numbers of cells growing as coenobia of different cell number are functions of growth rate when Scenedesmus quadricauda (Turp.) Bréb. is grown axenically in nitrate-limited, steady-state chemostats in continuous light. Unicells decreased from a maximum fraction of 0.04–0.05 of the total number of cells at 0.1 day−1 to 0.01 or less as g...

The paper discusses a mathematical and conceptual framework for interpreting and comparing laboratory and field results. The framework utilized is a multi-factor of die-off and dispersion of enteric bacteria in the sea. An outline of the development of the model is presented. The model is used to evaluate quantitatively the relative contribution of...

We report preliminary results of the Schatz Fuel Cell Research Project. The goal of this two year project is the design, construction, and testing of a 1.5 kW proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The final fuel cell stack will run on H2/Air at very low pressure as a component in the Schatz Solar Hydrogen Project. We report the characteristic...

In the summer of 2000 and the following two summers of 2001 and 2002, Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) used University-National Park Energy Partnership Program (UNPEPP) funding to hire two student interns from Humboldt State University's Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) program to identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency or...

For the past 12 years, the Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) has operated the Schatz Solar Hydrogen Project (SSHP). SSHP is a stand-alone renewable energy system that uses hydrogen as the energy storage medium and a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell as the regeneration technology [1,2]. Recently, a new 36-cell, 140 cm 2 PEM fuel cell was...