The Hunt for the New Fuel Cell

It’s an established fact that fuel-cells are a far more environment-friendly option compared to the average internal combustion engine. This is because fuel cells produce electricity from hydrogen and they don’t need to burn it.

Now, fuel cells aren’t limited to cars. They can be used to power your home and or your workplace. However, the main problem is that they’re impractical and extremely expensive to produce. But, we might have just come closer to making fuel cells commercially viable.

Researchers have now been able to develop a cost-effective and powerful fuel cell that runs at mid-range temperature. This new fuel cell could very well lead to a future where clean, green energy is plenty.

How it All Works?

Fuel cells typically operate at extreme temperatures – too cold or too hot. This is a major challenge that also impacts the cost of production. For example, the solid oxide fuel cells used in generators operate at 1000°C while polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, used in vehicles, operate at 100°C.

The lower the temperature, the higher the need for metal catalysts to speed up chemical reactions. but, these catalysts don’t come cheap. In the case of high-temperature operations, there is a need for expensive metal alloy structures just to handle the intense heat.

As a result, researchers set out to find something that could work at a moderate temperature, around maybe 500°C. A moderate temperature doesn’t slow down reactions drastically and eliminates the need for special metal alloy structures.

Though researchers were able to develop such cell, they could only generate about 200 milliwatts of electricity per square centimeter. The minimum required for commercial viability is 500 milliwatts per square centimeter. 

The Good News

The good news is that 3 teams have gotten closer to achieving this goal.

The first team, led by materials scientist Ryan O’Hayre from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, managed to develop an intermediate temperature fuel cell that was capable of generating 455 milliwatts of electricity per square centimeter.

The second team, led by materials scientist Ji-Won Son from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology has managed to create an intermediate temperature fuel cell that generated a similar amount of electricity while operating exactly at 500°C.

The third team led by a chemical engineer named Sossina Haile from Northwestern University, Illinois actually managed to beat the minimum requirement. By fixing an inherent weakness in the connection between the electrode and the electrolyte and boosting the composition of the ceramic electrodes for stability, the team managed to generate 550 milliwatts per square centimeter at 500°C.

So, will fuel cells become a core part of our energy infrastructure in the future? Well, based on the above-mentioned advances, it does not seem like a distant possibility.