TABLE OF CONTENTS Fuel cells can provide heat and power, and a huge variety of fuel-cell devices currently being tested and demonstrated are likely to hit the market in the next decade.
Unlike other electricity generators discussed in this book, fuel cells produce their power as a result of a chemical reaction. Chemical reactions often involve the transfer of electrons from one atom to another, leaving one positively charged and the other negatively charged. If a carefully chosen reaction is made to take place in an electrical circuit, with a source of electrons at one 'pole' and a substance that absorbs the electrons to complete the reaction at the other 'pole', the electrons move around the circuit.
A fuel cell operates a little like a battery. But a battery is a sealed unit containing its own fuel, in which the two poles are gradually consumed as a chemical process creates electricity. As a result it 'runs down' as the constituents are consumed.
In contrast, a fuel cell provides the site for a chemical reaction that produces electricity and water, but the fuel cell does not contain the chemicals that react: they are fed in during the reaction so the fuel cell can continue to produce electricity and heat as long as fuel is supplied.
The principle of the fuel cell was discovered by the German scientist Christian Friedrich Sch nbein in 1838. Based on this work, the first fuel cell was developed by the Welsh scientist Sir William Robert...
