It is necessary to insert the hydrogen gas at the anode and to insert the oxygen gas at the cathode, as shown in fig. The catalytic activity of the nickel foam was compared before and after plating with silver. Combinatorial studies of palladiumbased oxygen reduction. Alkaline fuel cells may become an important element in pollution free energy conversion.
Alkaline fuel cell afc technology was developed in 1959 by francis thomas bacon. Alkaline, direct methanol fuel cell pdf free download. Hicknerb, chaoyang wanga,b, aelectrochemical engine center, department of mechanical and nuclear engineering, the pennsylvaniastate university, university park, 16802. They are electrochemi cal devices similar to a battery and consist of a container, an. The power produced by a fuel cell depends on several factors, including the fuel cell type, size, temperature at which it operates, and pressure at which gases are supplied. In the literature most papers in the field of low temperature fuel cells are concerned with polymer electrolyte fuel cells. The alkaline fuel cell afc was the rst fuel cell tech. Creates electricity through electrochemical process. Prospects of fuel cell technologies national science. Anion exchange membranes derived from nafion precursor for. Using an alkaline electrolyte such as potassium hydroxide koh in water and cathodes usually made with platinum, afcs are among the most efficient type of fuel cells, reaching up to. Octahedral spinel electrocatalysts for alkaline fuel cells. Maintaining a high gas purity is important for storage safety and for the direct usage in a fuel cell.
We present a systematic study of a family of 15 types of octahedral spinel electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction orr in alkaline fuel cells. Direct methanol fuel cell technology is relatively new compared to hydrogen fuel cells. To increase the voltage, individual fuel cells are combined in series to form a stack. Nasa has used alkaline fuel cells since the mid1960s, in apolloseries missions and on the space shuttle alkaline fuel cells consume hydrogen and pure oxygen producing potable water, heat, and electricity. Alkaline fuel cells have as electrolyte an aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide. Introduction alkaline fuel cells, or afcs, use as the electrolyte, potassium. Alkaline fuel cells afcs are one of the most developed technologies and have been used since the mid1960s by nasa. An overview of fuel cells currently under development. Three specific candidates, mnco2o4c, comn2o4c, and cofe2o4c, exhibited very promising orr activity. Alternative sources of energy an introduction to fuel cells. Progress continues in fuel cell technology since the previous edition of the fuel cell handbook was published in november 1998. Alkaline membrane fuel cells with insitu crosslinked ionomers yongjun lenga, lizhu wangb, michael a. The fuel is almost always hydrogen gas, with oxygen or oxygen in air as the oxidizer. Department of energy office of fossil energy national energy technology laboratory p.
Alkaline membrane fuel cells amfcs show great potential as alternative energy conversion devices to acidic proton exchange membrane fuel cells pemfcs. A fuel cell resembles a battery in many respects, but it can supply electrical energy over a much longer period of time. Pdf a new cathode design for alkaline fuel cells eric. Usually, this solution has a concentration of around 30%. In the past two decades a rapid change has taken place and many groups have stopped developing. Piperidiniumfunctionalized anion exchange membranes and. Polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis wikipedia. The highly conductive lscpi membrane showed good cell performance with a peak power density of 116 mw cm.
Merewether abstract fuel cells are important future sources of electrical power and could contribute to a reduction in the amount of petro leum imported by the united states. In this lecture, we are going to discuss the hydrogenoxygen fuel cell and its advantages and disadvantages. Patented nonnoble metal catalysts have significantly reduced our material costs and our liquid electrolyte enables our fuel cell solutions for backup and offgrid power to operate in a greater range of weather conditions. The article also lists the various drawbacks this technology faces. Abstract the potential use of nickel foam as a new electrode substrate in alkaline fuel cell afc cathodes has been investigated.
Although a gradual drop in performance was observed for both the alkaline fuel cell and water electrolyser. Fc technologies can be categorized according to the nature of the electrolytes, including lowtemperature protonexchange membrane fuel cells pemfcs, alkaline fuel cells afcs, phosphoric acid fuel cells pafcs to hightemperature moltencarbonate fuel cells mcfcs and solidoxide fuel cells. Understand the hazards, control the risks page 5 of 32 health and safety executive how fuel cells work 5 a fuel cell is a device for harnessing the energy liberated when hydrogen, or a hydrogenrich fuel, reacts with oxygen to produce water. Pdf an assessment of alkaline fuel cell technology researchgate. Fuel cells understand the hazards, control the risks. The voltage of a battery cell is determined by the chemistry used inside.
Pefc, 2 alkaline fuel cell afc, 3 phosphoric acid fuel cell pafc, 4 molten carbonate fuel cell mcfc, and 5 solid oxide fuel cell. Fuel cells are classified primarily by the kind of electrolyte they employ. Adjacent to the screen was the carbon catalyst with a teflon binder. Fuel cell seminar report with ppt and pdf study mafia. Afcs were used in the space shuttle in an expensive guise, producing power for the onboard systems by combining the pure hydrogen and oxygen stored in the rocketfueling system. Alkaline fuel cells afcs were one of the first fuel cell technologies to be developed and were originally used by nasa in the space programme to produce both electricity and water aboard spacecraft. Alkaline anion exchange membrane fuel cells aemfc status subject presentation on alkaline membrane fuel cell \amfc\ status by dario dekel, technionisrael institute of technology, at the 2016 alkaline membrane fuel cell workshop held on april 1, 2016, in phoenix, arizona. Fuel cell, any of a class of devices that convert the chemical energy of a fuel directly into electricity by electrochemical reactions. A fuel cell is a device that converts the chemical energy from a fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction of positively charged hydrogen ions with oxygen or another oxidizing agent. A battery storage cell is a galvanic cell or a series of galvanic cells that contains all the reactants needed to produce electricity. A single fuel cell produces barely enough voltage for even the smallest applications. Alkaline fuel cells encyclopedia of life support systems. Over the last decade, there has been significant progress in the development of alkaline stable polyaromatic materials for membrane separators and ionomeric binders for amfcs. Unlike alkaline, phosphoric acid, and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, mcfcs dont require an external reformer to convert more energydense fuels to.
Types of fuel cells department of chemical engineering. Uppermost, polymer electrolyte fuel cells, molten carbonate fuel cells, and solid oxide fuel cells have been demonstrated at commercial size in power plants. Alkaline membrane fuel cells with insitu crosslinked. Afcs continued to be used on nasa space shuttles throughout the programme, alongside a limited number of commercial applications. Report alkaline, direct methanol fuel cell your name. Such performance was ascribed to a partial charge transfer. Alkaline anion exchange membrane fuel cells aemfc status. Usually they are connected together inside to make a 6v, 12v or 24v battery. Alkaline fuel cell an overview sciencedirect topics. The alkaline fuel cell afc has a long history in the space program. This page contains fuel cell seminar and ppt with pdf report.
Moving from proton exchange membrane fuel cells to anion exchange membrane fuel cells aemfcs enables the use of nonptgroup npg metals as cathodes for the oxygen reduction reaction, since the oxygen reduction kinetics on npg metals is significantly enhanced in alkaline media. Anion exchange membranes derived from nafion precursor for the alkaline fuel cell a thesis submitted to the faculty of drexel university by holly lynn schaeffer salerno. The alkaline fuel cell afc, also known as the bacon fuel cell after its british inventor, francis thomas bacon, is one of the most developed fuel cell technologies. Using an alkaline electrolyte such as potassium hydroxide koh in water and cathodes usually made with platinum, afcs are among the most efficient type of fuel cells, reaching up to 60% efficiency up to 87% combined heat and power. This classification determines the kind of electrochemical reactions that take place in the cell, the kind of catalysts required, the temperature range in which the cell operates, the fuel required, and other factors.
In contrast, a fuel cell is a galvanic cell that requires a constant external supply of one or more. Pdf this paper present the design of an alkaline fuel cell operating between 100250oc. Seventh edition fuel cell handbook technical report. Pdf anion exchange membranes for alkaline fuel cells. This type of fuel cell is the first generation fuel cell system that was employed as power sources in space vehicles. Principles and materials aspects of direct alkaline alcohol fuel cells eileen hao yu 1, ulrike krewer 2,3, and keith scott 1 1 school of chemical engineering and advanced materials, merz court, newcastle university.
These npg metal catalysts are also stable under alkaline conditions and cost much less than ptgroup metals. Normally, when hydrogen and oxygen react, a flame and heat energy are produced. However, because the presence of carbon dioxide degrades the cell performance, the stationary application using hydrocarbon fuels is limited. Alkaline fuel cell technology lets us reach the highest electrochemical efficiencies among all low temperature fuel cells. Alkaline fuel cell applications free download as powerpoint presentation. Alkaline fuel cells an overview sciencedirect topics. For example, alkaline fuel cells allow the use of nonprecious metal catalysts because of facile oxygen reduction kinetics at high ph conditions, but suffer from the. Beginning with the underlying concepts, the discussion explores fuel cell thermodynamics, kinetics, transport, and modeling before moving into the application side with guidance on system. A complete, uptodate, introductory guide to fuel cell technology and application. The combinatorial approach guiding the nanoparticle synthesis, described herein, provides an optimized highthroughput screening method for other binary or ternary alloys as fuel cell electrocatalysts. Fuel cell fundamentals provides a thorough introduction to the principles and practicalities behind fuel cell technology. A comparison between the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells and the alkaline fuel cells afc with liquid electrolyte, the npc99nagoya international battery and power sources conference. Box 880 morgantown, west virginia 265070880 november 2004.
An introduction to fuel cells and hydrogen technology by brian cook, heliocentris vancouver, canada whereas the 19th century was the century of the steam engine and the 20th century was the century of the internal combustion engine, it is likely that the 21st century will be the century of the fuel cell. In particular, comn2o4c could rival the orr activity and selectivity of ptc. Alkaline fuel cells were the best performers in the initial decades of fuel cell development. Sumit thakur ece seminars fuel cell seminar and ppt with pdf report.
Hydrogen was bubbled into one arm while oxygen into the other. Fuel cell seminar report with ppt and pdf parts of fuel cells there are 4 main parts anode cathode catalyst proton exchange membrane types of. Rational design of polyaromatic ionomers for alkaline. The alkaline fuel cell afc, polymericelectrolytemembrane fuel cell pemfc and phosphoricacid fuel cell pafc stacks essentially require relatively pure hydrogen to. Alkaline fuel cell requires pure hydrogen and oxygen because it is very susceptible to. The polymer electrolyte membrane, due to its solid structure, exhibits a low gas crossover rate resulting in very high product gas purity. However, there are still a lot of research groups and companies working on alkaline fuel cells. Fuel cell handbook seventh edition national energy technology. These are devices that, by definition, have an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide as the electrolyte. This paper present the design of an alkaline fuel cell operating between 100250oc. Surprisingly, the power performance was higher relative to. Principles and materials aspects of direct alkaline alcohol. Batteries can be made of multiple cells, so for example, youll rarely see a 2v leadacid battery.
Cells pemfc, direct methanol fuel cells dmfc, alkaline fuel cells afc, phosphoric acid fuel cell pafc. Because galvanic cells can be selfcontained and portable, they can be used as batteries and fuel cells. Alkaline fuel cell afc has the highest efficiency and is therefore being used to generate electricity in space craft for more than thirty years. Figure 41 principles of operation of h2o2 alkaline fuel cell, immobilized. Other articles where alkaline fuel cell is discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of afcs are presented.