What is a fuel cell? | Nano Technology скачать в хорошем качестве

What is a fuel cell? | Nano Technology

Today video lesson content There are some interesting innovations and fuel cell products in the market worth taking a closer look at. But before we get to that. It's important to understand some of the basics. How do fuel cells work and how do they compare to batteries? This is where you'll start to see why a lot of people think that fuel cells have missed their window of opportunity. Now, fuel cells aren't a new concept at all. They go back to 1838 when Sir William Grove invented them. But it wasn't until almost a century later that Frances Thomas Bacon invented the hydrogen fuel cell, which eventually became the cornerstone for commercialized fuel cells. It's often referred to as the bacon fuel cell. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it and this alkaline fuel cell has been used by NASA to power satellites and capsules since the 1960s. It's during this time frame that they started to gain some commercialized success the way fuel cells work should look kind of familiar if you know how batteries and supercapacitors work. They're made up of an anode, cathode, and electrolyte. Just like a battery on the anode side, you supply a source of fuel lake hydrogen, which uses something like platinum to act as a catalyst, causing the fuel to undergo oxidation which is generating the ions. Now these ions, which are positively charged, travel to the cathode through the electrolyte and electrical circuit. This is where the direct current is captured and put to use. The cathode catalysts, which usually is something like nickel and flooded with oxygen. It turns the ions into waste. Now in the case of hydrogen, because we're using oxygen on the cathode, we're talking about creating water as a byproduct. Most fuel cells produce water, heat, and depending on the fuel source, nitrogen oxide. Fuel cells are similar to combustion engines and generators and they require a constant supply of fuel to keep operating. Where they differ is that instead of burning a fuel to release that power is captured heat fuel cells use chemical reactions to release and then capture ions to generate electricity. That's where they're more similar to batteries, but fuel cells sit kind of in between those two technologies, and it's also true when it comes to efficiency. How effective are they at capturing and using the energy they generate? Most fuel cells fall somewhere between 40 and 60% efficient if they're designed to capture the heat they generate as well, they might be able to get that up to about 80% range. #nano #nanotechnology #fuelcell #science #technology