Fuel Cell Technology :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Fuel boothular telephone TechnologyFuel prison cells atomic number 18 a hot topic these geezerhood between the soon to come elicit cell cars thatToyota and Honda plan on unveiling this year and the $1.2 billion president Bushannounced he would dedicate to fuel cell research during his State of the Union address.The least(prenominal) efficient of these electrochemical naught converters are at least as efficient as inside combustion engines and many are twice as efficient when using specialtechniques. Exhaust from fuel cells is exceedingly clean, often consisting only of piddle.Although some mapping hydrocarbons, fuel cells give come to virtually one one-hundredth of thepollutants given off by an internal combustion engine using the same amount of fuel(Fuel Cell Technology Handbook). Unfortunately some engineering and infrastructureproblems, especially costs, are keeping fuel cells from commercial viability right now.A Brief news report of Fuel Cell TechnologyThe ideas behind fuel cells have existed for around one hundred and sixty years.Sir William Grove is cited as the first soul to think that one could produce a current byreversing the electrolysis of water (SAE.org). However, it was until fifty years later thatthe term fuel cell was coined by two researchers, Charles Langer and Ludwig Mond,trying to invent the first viable fuel cell fueled by coal gas (SAE.org). The technologylay passive for most of the early twentieth century because of great advances in the useof internal combustion engines. It wasnt until 1959 that practical fuel cells were firstdemonstrated. NASA speedily took interest in the technology for the Apollo missions andsince there has been a renaissance in research and development of fuel cells. Currently,there are on the rescript of hundreds of fuel cell generators in operation world wide, citiessuch as L.A., Chicago, and New York, own fuel cell cater public expatriation vehicles, andboth Honda and Toyota plan on making fu el cell powered car commercially availablewithin one year (fuelcells.org).How a Fuel Cell WorksA fuel cell is an energy converter that uses electrochemical energy to create 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 precise, afuel cell creates direct current by ionizing a fuel and then woful those ions through acircuit. The three main components are the anode (negatively bashd piece), cathode(positively charge piece), and electrolyte (medium for the transfer of ions). Fuel,typically hydrogen, is ionized at the anode by a throttle valve (substance that can change aninteraction, but does not change the chemistry of it).