Electronics & Semiconductors
Hydrogen gas and methanol for fuel cells, or as raw materials for the chemicals industry, for example, could be produced more sustainably using sunlight, a new Uppsala University study shows. In this study, researchers have ...
Nov 18, 2020
0
222
Energy & Green Tech
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded just under $14 million for an attempt to build a hydrogen-energy production facility at a nuclear power plant in Minnesota with the help of a nuclear research lab in Idaho.
Nov 12, 2020
0
6
Energy & Green Tech
Engineers at the University of Bath have shown that it's possible to capture and use energy created by the natural reactions occurring in microorganisms within soil.
Oct 28, 2020
0
117
Energy & Green Tech
A team of researchers from China, Canada and Australia has found a way to improve the efficiency of all-perovskite solar cells through use of a reducing agent. In their paper published in the journal Nature Energy, the group ...
Business
Shares of embattled auto startup Nikola tumbled again Monday following the sudden resignation of company founder Trevor Milton in the wake of fraud allegations.
Sep 21, 2020
0
8
Automotive
General Motors announced its second major electric vehicle partnership in less than a week on Tuesday, this time a $2 billion deal with startup Nikola.
Sep 8, 2020
0
6
Engineering
In a worldwide first that could jumpstart a clean energy economy built around the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen fuel cells have powered a row of datacenter servers for 48 consecutive hours, Microsoft announced ...
Jul 28, 2020
0
17
Energy & Green Tech
Today, aviation is responsible for 3.6% of EU greenhouse gas emissions. Modern planes use kerosene as fuel, releasing harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But what if there was another way?
Jul 8, 2020
0
10
Engineering
Electrification of the transportation sector—one of the largest consumers of energy in the world—is critical to future energy and environmental resilience. Electrification of this sector will require high-power fuel cells ...
Jun 18, 2020
1
750
Energy & Green Tech
Washington State University researchers have made a key advance in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that could make the highly energy-efficient and low-polluting technology a more viable alternative to gasoline combustion engines ...
Jun 8, 2020
1
262
A fuel cell is an electrochemical conversion device. It produces electricity from fuel (on the anode side) and an oxidant (on the cathode side), which react in the presence of an electrolyte. The reactants flow into the cell, and the reaction products flow out of it, while the electrolyte remains within it. Fuel cells can operate virtually continuously as long as the necessary flows are maintained.
Fuel cells are different from electrochemical cell batteries in that they consume reactant from an external source, which must be replenished – a thermodynamically open system. By contrast, batteries store electrical energy chemically and hence represent a thermodynamically closed system.
Many combinations of fuels and oxidants are possible. A hydrogen fuel cell uses hydrogen as its fuel and oxygen (usually from air) as its oxidant. Other fuels include hydrocarbons and alcohols. Other oxidants include chlorine and chlorine dioxide.
The principle of the fuel cell had been demonstrated by Sir William Grove in 1839, and other investigators had experimented with various forms of fuel cell. The first practical fuel cell was developed by Francis Thomas Bacon in 1959.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
