Proton- Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) Essay

Beran, J. A. Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry. 8th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2009

The Hydrogen Fuel Cell could revolutionize the world. This ingenious technology, which creates electricity from the chemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen has, in its 150-year history, passed many of the critical tests along the path from invention to innovation. Recent developments in fuel cell technology and concurrent developments within the energy and automotive industries have brought the world to brink of the fuel cell age and the hydrogen economy.

This cell uses bacteria like Shewanella oneidensis and Rhodoferax ferrireducens and many labs are attempting to find better strains of bacteria more suited to the process (3). This fuel cells work in two parts. Basically, the microbial fuel cell has two halves, aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic means with presence of oxygen, anaerobic means a lack of oxygen. When bacteria consume their “food” in aerobic conditions they produce carbon dioxide and water, however when it’s in an anaerobic condition they produce carbon dioxide, electrons and protons. The MFC has the bacteria put in the anaerobic chamber of the cell and decompose water material that contain glucose and/or acetate. The bacteria also free hydrogen ions and electrons. The electrons flow from an anode into the cathode. The hydrogen ions however just pass through the barrier; soon the electrons and hydrogen ions are in the aerobic chamber and combine with the oxygen forming h2o. The H2O is released and electrical energy is produced from the transfer off the energy between the Anode and Cathode (or Anaerobic and Aerobic chambers).

Note: Your prelab/lab report is to be done in your carbon copy lab notebook (sold in FIU bookstore)

• The final product is contaminated with both hypochlorite ions and NaCl. • Due to the maintenance of the diaphragm and the purification of the final product required, the Diaphragm cell is very expensive to operate. Finally, the membrane cell is the most recent cell and is very similar to the diaphragm cell, but uses a PTFE (Teflon) polymer membrane instead of the asbestos diaphragm. In doing so it overcomes nearly all the limitations of the diaphragm cell, however, the cell is still very expensive and is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

The automotive industry is one of the largest industries in the entire world. As the world’s population grows and economic development occurs, the auto industry also expands. Unfortunately the growth in car numbers has had a negative environmenta, impact due to carbon dioxide and particulate emissions generated and released from the combustion process. Technology has developed a solution by utilizing the concept of hydrogen fuel cells. As the years have passed, there has been continuous development on automotive fuel cells and now it has come close to mass production of these vehicles. The main problem is the continued development of hydrogen fuel cells and their infrastructure may not be worth the cost.

All the reagents used in this experiment were obtained from Sigma-Aldrich and were grade as specified in the original article^1. The roto evaporations were run under standard conditions. Most of the reactions were carried out at room temperature except for the reactions that used acid because they needed to be chilled with dichloromethane. The GCMS and FTIR were all conducted under normal conditions.

Since proton takes part in the oxidation of MTX, the pH value of solution will greatly influence the Ipa [45]. The effects of stripping pH value of the PBS buffer solution on the electrochemical performance of MTX were also tested with the pH varying from 3.0 to 9.0 using 0.05 M PBS buffer and theresults were depicted in Fig. 9.The results showed a maximum of Ipa when the buffer solution pH was 4.0 (Fig. 9). Therefore, in subsequent experiments, the stripping was carried out in 0.05 mol L-1 phosphate buffer with pH

This source mainly concentrates on the use of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to the United States dependency on foreign oil. It elaborates on the negatives of our countries reliance upon external sources for the vast majority of our power production needs, and suggests that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer to a sustainable energy future. The author is a writer for CQ Researcher who concentrates on energy, environmental, and defense issues. While the article is mainly geared toward individuals interested in the automotive industry and the applications of hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles, it does an excellent job of contrasting oil based

One of the leading causes of lung cancer is believed to be air pollution. With nearly all automobiles running on gasoline, there is a much higher chance of obtaining a life threatening disease. There are many different solutions that attempted to fix the problem of automobile pollution but only one has come close. The hydrogen fuel cell consists of two electrodes, a positively charged cathode, and a negatively charged anode. The fuel cell has an electrolyte that sends electrically charged particles from one electrode to the other. The hydrogen fuel cell is able to produce energy as long as oxygen and hydrogen are available. Hydrogen fuel cells don’t produce emissions and are also able to power all motor vehicles. These special fuel cells do not cause pollution or create dangerous byproducts, their only byproducts are water and heat. In addition, a hydrogen fuel cell is way more efficient than gasoline powered engines. Most forms of transportation emit harmful emissions and cause pollution. The hydrogen fuel cell is an environmentally friendly alternative to

The lead/acid battery has been in common use in automobiles since 1915 or so. It has plates of lead in sulphuric acid solution in water. One of the sets of lead plates is coated with lead dioxide. As such a battery discharges it creates two chemical reactions, one at the anode that ends up with an excess of electrons, and one at the cathode that ends up short electrons.

The element in fuel cells is hydrogen. Chemical reactions between the electrodes and the electrolyte generate electricity.

small, positively-charged proton with a negatively-charged electron orbiting very fast, a model analogous to the earth orbiting the sun, or the moon orbiting the earth. Fuel cells take advantage of this structure. Using a membrane and a catalyst, hydrogen is broken up into a proton and an electron. While there are many different membrane models for fuel cells, the most appropriate one for car travel is the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM, also called the Proton Exchange Membrane). It is called this because protons are able to easily pass through the membrane. However, because the membrane does not allow electrons to pass through it, the electrons take a detour through an electrical circuit to the other side of the cell. If hydrogen is supplied into the cell at a steady rate, the stream of electrons in the electrical circuit creates electric power. However, like all batteries, you need a positive end (cathode) and a negative end (anode); in other words, the hydrogen atoms must have a “reason” to make this electrical circuit. And what is this reason? Oxygen. With oxygen at the other end, hydrogen is more than willing to create this current so that it can bind and form H2O, or water on the other end.

The battery of the electric car stores chemical energy and converts the energy to electricity. The chemistry of the electric car is found mainly in the battery. In the battery there is a chemical reaction in cells which then produces a voltage. These batteries usually have 200 to 400 small cells. The cells are combined to create a powerful battery. The risk is that if one cell overcharge it causes a thermal reaction. The development electronic controls for this risk are in process but are expensive. Khalil Amine and Zonghai Chen of the Argonne National Laboratory discovered a molecule base of boron and fluorine added to each cell controls the charging of the battery cells. The molecule is said to be less costly and more reliable than the electric control. (MANDEL, 2009)

In order to understand the why behind the need to change from fossil fuels to hydrogen power, it is necessary to understand what that power is and how it works. Hydrogen is the most abundant and simplest element on earth. It is most commonly found as part of water. In its pure gaseous form it is extremely light, but when ignited in this state releases a large amount of energy in an explosion. In this violent reaction the hydrogen combines with free oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and creates water vapor. This is similar to the way gasoline is combined with air and ignited in an internal combustion engine in the cars used today and like with gasoline, the combustion of hydrogen has risks. In addition to the risk, some of the energy released in the reaction is lost in the form of sound and heat. As an alternative to burning, these same gases can be combined with the use of catalysts to extract the free electrons produced as liquid water is formed(Popovici and Hoble Dorel). Using cables connected to a fuel cell such as this, those electrons go through a circuit, generating electricity. This is more efficient than combustion because less energy is wasted in the form of sound and heat. Going further, greater efficiency for this reaction can be had the lower the temperature it is allowed to take place at, with 83% power at 25◦C(77◦ F)(Popovici and Hoble Dorel). As fuel cells are created with better heat management and