Fuel-cell concepts and technology

Cost reduction and fueling options are the two major issues facing auto industry OEMs and suppliers as they develop vehicles and systems for production beginning in 2003.

Auto manufacturers around the globe are placing their bets on fuel cells as major long-term energy-conversion solutions because they offer high fuel economy and substantially lower emissions, particularly of CO₂. Though it is very early in the automotive fuel-cell R&D cycle, fuel cells as energy providers are not new. Utilities use fuel cells to generate electricity for normal industrial and consumer use and for emergency back-up power. The Gemini and Apollo space programs were powered by fuel cells. The primary transportation application to date has been on city buses engineered for low exhaust-emissions demonstrations.

Like batteries, fuel cells rely on chemical reactions at electrodes to convert energy from chemical to electrical form. Specifically, fuel cells electrochemically combine oxygen from the air with hydrogen from a hydrocarbon fuel to produce electricity. Unlike batteries, fuel cells store the reactants outside of the electrodes. They are fed to the cell as “fuel” for the reaction.