Fuel Cell Technology :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Fuel Cell TechnologyFuel Cells argon a hot topic these days between the soon to come sack cellular telephone cars thatToyota and Honda plan on unveiling this year and the $1.2 billion death chair Bushannounced he would dedicate to fuel cell look for during his State of the Union address.The least efficient of these electrochemical energy converters are at least as efficient asinternal burning at the stake engines and many are doubly as efficient when using peculiar(prenominal)techniques. Exhaust from fuel cells is extremely clean, often consisting only of water.Although some lend oneself hydrocarbons, fuel cells give off around one one-hundredth of thepollutants give off by an internal combustion engine using the identical amount of fuel(Fuel Cell Technology Handbook). Unfortunately some engineer and infrastructureproblems, especially costs, are keeping fuel cells from commercial viability make up now.A Brief History of Fuel Cell TechnologyThe ideas merchant ship fuel cel ls have existed for around one hundred and sixty years.Sir William grove is cited as the branch person to think that one could produce a current byreversing the electrolysis of water (SAE.org). However, it was until fifty years later thatthe frontier fuel cell was coined by two researchers, Charles Langer and Ludwig Mond,trying to invent the first viable fuel cell fueled by coal fellate (SAE.org). The technologylay dormant for most of the early twentieth vitamin C because of great advances in the useof internal combustion engines. It wasnt until 1959 that practical(a) fuel cells were firstdemonstrated. NASA quickly took interest in the technology for the Apollo missions andsince in that respect has been a renaissance in research and development of fuel cells. Currently, on that point are on the order of hundreds of fuel cell generators in mental process world wide, citiessuch as L.A., Chicago, and New York, own fuel cell powered public transit vehicles, andboth Honda and Toy ota plan on qualification fuel cell powered car commercially available within one year (fuelcells.org).How a Fuel Cell WorksA fuel cell is an energy converter that uses electrochemical energy to pee anelectric current. Because they use electrochemistry for power, fuel cells are often likenedto batteries that run on fuel. This description is not a bad one, but to be more(prenominal) precise, afuel cell creates direct current by ionizing a fuel and then moving those ions through acircuit. The three principal(prenominal) components are the anode (negatively charged piece), cathode(positively charge piece), and electrolyte (medium for the transfer of ions). Fuel,typically hydrogen, is ionized at the anode by a catalyst (substance that can change aninteraction, but does not change the chemistry of it).