The Nuclear Imperative by Jeff W. Eerkens

Author:Jeff W. Eerkens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

5.2.2 Electrochemical Fuel-Cell Engines (FCEs)

In a fuel-cell, chemical energy is directly converted into DC electric energy (see Brief 19a and Refs. III-1 and III-2). In automobile applications, the DC voltage of about 1 V per cell is boosted by a stack of cells in series to about 120–330 V to drive four electric motors placed on each wheel or to run one motor and engage a gear-train that moves the car. Electrically driven automobiles have been under development for many decades and several well-tested schemes are available. The first publication of experiments with H2/O2 fuel-cells was by Sir William Grove in 1839 in England. Later at the turn of the nineteenth century (1896), W.W. Jaques in the US and W. Ostwald in Germany, reported successful direct electricity generation with high-temperature (500°C) carbon/air fuel cells. However interest in direct carbon/air fuel-cell generation of electricity waned, when more robust coal-burning steam turbines showed successful conversion of heat to electricity at about the same time. Renewed efforts to produce electric power on a smaller scale with H2/O2 fuel-cells using modern materials, were started by Francis T. Bacon in 1933. After him, numerous other fuel-cell studies were undertaken by research teams all over the world. Several fuel-cell units with 2–20 kW(e) outputs were developed and used by NASA on Gemini, Apollo, and other spacecraft missions in the 1970s and thereafter. Brief 19b–19d show some early fuel-cell systems developed for NASA.

Brief 19Typical fuel cell systems

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