Fuel Cell Energy
So how much energy can a fuel cell generate on it’s own? That’s a good question. As explained before, fuel cells work by separating electrons from protons, and making the electrons run through a circuit, generating electricity. The average fuel cell can generate a voltage of up to 0.7 volts. That’s lower than what it is actually physically possible for a number of reasons. First, there is an “Activation Loss”, meaning that it cost more energy to start the reaction than is actually necessary. Second, there is also resistance in every material in the world. This resistance means that some voltage gets wasted traveling through the material.
But, as I’ve said before, it’s very possible to put fuel cells into a series or parallel circuit, which is called a fuel cell stack, allowing for any number of voltage, limited only by the size restraints on the fuel cell. Also, the efficency we get on fuel cell energy is %50+, meaning that we’re missing half of the energy possible from fuel cells. To put that in perspective, we get efficency of %20 percent with normal petroleum based fuel. And the maximum efficentcy possible is %25 with petroleum. With the fuel cell, we can get almsot completly pure hydrogen, meaning we can get up to %99.9999 efficency with fuel cells.
Finally, the most important part of fuel cell energy is the emissions. It doesn’t matter how efficient we become, if the fuel we use will destroy the earth. This is the biggest draw of fuel cells: the only emisson is H2O, or water. That’s right, we’re just releasing one of the eco friendly compounds ever, back into the ecosystem. This is the way of the future: living with nature, and not destroying it.
Links:
Fuel Cell Electrolye from Essential Depot
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