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Digital Assignment: - ADITYA GHOSH (19BME0519)

The document discusses fuel cells, which convert chemical energy directly into electricity through electrochemical reactions. Fuel cells were first invented in 1838 but did not see commercial use until 1932 with the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell. Fuel cells are used to provide primary and backup power and to power vehicles, and have higher efficiency than internal combustion engines. A typical fuel cell produces 0.6-0.7 volts, with the voltage decreasing as the current increases due to various loss factors. Fuel cells can be combined in series and parallel configurations to achieve desired energy output.

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Aditya Ghosh
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37 views

Digital Assignment: - ADITYA GHOSH (19BME0519)

The document discusses fuel cells, which convert chemical energy directly into electricity through electrochemical reactions. Fuel cells were first invented in 1838 but did not see commercial use until 1932 with the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell. Fuel cells are used to provide primary and backup power and to power vehicles, and have higher efficiency than internal combustion engines. A typical fuel cell produces 0.6-0.7 volts, with the voltage decreasing as the current increases due to various loss factors. Fuel cells can be combined in series and parallel configurations to achieve desired energy output.

Uploaded by

Aditya Ghosh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DIGITAL ASSIGNMENT :-

-ADITYA GHOSH(19BME0519)

A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical


energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often
oxygen]) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel
cells are different from most batteries in requiring a continuous
source of fuel and oxygen (usually from air) to sustain the
chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy
usually comes from metals and their ions or oxides [3] that are
commonly already present in the battery, except in flow
batteries. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as
long as fuel and oxygen are supplied.
The first fuel cells were invented by Sir William
Grove in 1838. The first commercial use of fuel cells came
more than a century later following the invention of the
hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell by Francis Thomas Bacon in 1932.
The alkaline fuel cell, also known as the Bacon fuel cell after its
inventor, has been used in NASA space programs since the
mid-1960s to generate power for satellites and space capsules.
Since then, fuel cells have been used in many other
applications. Fuel cells are used for primary and backup power
for commercial, industrial and residential buildings and in
remote or inaccessible areas. They are also used to power fuel
cell vehicles, including forklifts, automobiles, buses, boats,
motorcycles and submarines.
Fuel cells come in many varieties; however, they all work in the
same general manner. They are made up of three adjacent
segments: the anode, the electrolyte, and the cathode. Two
chemical reactions occur at the interfaces of the three different
segments. The net result of the two reactions is that fuel is
consumed, water or carbon dioxide is created, and an electric
current is created, which can be used to power electrical
devices, normally referred to as the load.
At the anode a catalyst oxidizes the fuel, usually hydrogen,
turning the fuel into a positively charged ion and a negatively
charged electron. The electrolyte is a substance specifically
designed so ions can pass through it, but the electrons cannot.
The freed electrons travel through a wire creating the electric
current. The ions travel through the electrolyte to the cathode.
Once reaching the cathode, the ions are reunited with the
electrons and the two react with a third chemical, usually
oxygen, to create water or carbon dioxide.

A block diagram of a fuel cell


Design features in a fuel cell include:

 The electrolyte substance, which usually defines


the type of fuel cell, and can be made from a number of
substances like potassium hydroxide, salt carbonates, and
phosphoric acid.[19]
 The fuel that is used. The most common fuel is hydrogen.

 The anode catalyst, usually fine platinum powder, breaks


down the fuel into electrons and ions.

 The cathode catalyst, often nickel, converts ions into


waste chemicals, with water being the most common type of
waste.[20]

 Gas diffusion layers that are designed to resist oxidization.


[20]

A typical fuel cell produces a voltage from 0.6 V to 0.7 V at full


rated load. Voltage decreases as current increases, due to
several factors:

 Activation loss

 Ohmic loss (voltage drop due to resistance of the cell


components and interconnections)

 Mass transport loss (depletion of reactants at catalyst sites


under high loads, causing rapid loss of voltage).[21]
To deliver the desired amount of energy, the fuel cells can be
combined in series to yield higher voltage, and in parallel to
allow a higher current to be supplied. Such a design is called
a fuel cell stack. The cell surface area can also be increased, to
allow higher current from each cell. Within the stack, reactant
gases must be distributed uniformly over each of the cells to
maximize the power output.[22][23][24]

A fuel cell, like a battery, is inherently a high-efficiency device.


Unlike internal-combustion machines, in which a fuel is burned
and gas is expanded to do work, the fuel cell converts chemical
energy directly into electrical energy. Because of this
fundamental characteristic, fuel cells may convert fuels to
useful energy at an efficiency as high as 60 percent, whereas
the internal-combustion engine is limited to efficiencies near 40
percent or less. The high efficiency means that much less fuel
and a smaller storage container are needed for a fixed energy
requirement. For this reason, fuel cells are an attractive power
supply for space missions of limited duration and for other
situations where fuel is very expensive and difficult to supply.
They also emit no noxious gases such as nitrogen dioxide and
produce virtually no noise during operation, making
them contenders for local municipal power-generation stations.
A fuel cell can be designed to operate reversibly. In other
words, a hydrogen-oxygen cell that produces water as a
product can be made to regenerate hydrogen and oxygen.
Such a regenerative fuel cell entails not only a revision
of electrode design but also the introduction of special means
for separating the product gases. Eventually, power
modules comprising this type of high-efficiency fuel cell, used in
conjunction with large arrays of thermal collectors for solar
heating or other solar energy systems, may be utilized to keep
energy-cycle costs lower in longer-lived equipment.
Major automobile companies and electrical-machinery
manufacturing companies worldwide have announced their
intention to produce or use fuel cells commercially in the next
few years.

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