greenoptimistic.com — ACAL Energy Ltd. has broken a new record in fuel cell output power with a liquid platinum-free cathode system. The scientists from ACAL Energy obtained, from a development proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell using platinum-free cathode technology, a peak power that constantly exceeded 570mW/cm2.
Feb 7, 2009 View in Crawl 4
fishwithakiFeb 8, 2009
Another step forward for the fuel cell industry! I really hope these breakthroughs continue as I feel fuel cells have potential in being a major power source one day.
berkanaFeb 8, 2009
The problem is, hydrogen fuel cells still don't solve the basic problem: where is the energy going to come from?In a nut shell, here's the problem:* It is easier to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons (petroleum) than it is to strip it off of water, but that leaves us dependent on foreign oil, while losing a lot of the energy content of the oil, which is in the carbon.* Stripping it off of water is an exercise in futility if you want a sustainable solution; using energy to power electrolysis to break water into hydrogen and oxygen, just to use a fuel cell to turn the hydrogen back into water to generate electricity, means hydrogen isn't being used as a fuel; it's being used as a battery. And as far as batteries go, hydrogen is a very lousy battery.The breakdown of the losses incurred by using hydrogen as a storage medium for electricity are shown here:<a class="user" href="http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html">http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html</a>A much better solution would be to improve conventional battery technology, and to realize that the electron economy is what we're after, not the hydrogen economy, which is ultimately an inefficient way of providing electricity. You can't break even with hydrogen.
demiz23Feb 8, 2009
Um when you are converting energy you cant break even, entropy and all. But further your assuming that we will be limited by the amount of energy to put into creating fuel, which solar will eventually prove we are not. So the cleanliness of hydrogen power may be more than worthwhile. Not saying I think you are wrong for the present but be more optimistic, or less short sighted.
kombaiyashiiFeb 8, 2009
Can anyone put it in laymens terms? How does it compare to say the iphone battery for example...
berkanaFeb 9, 2009
If you would read the Physorg article, you'll see that by going to the use of hydrogen, much of the energy is wasted simply due to overhead and handling. There is nothing intrinsically cleaner about hydrogen power compared to a rechargeable recyclable battery.Also, if you haven't noticed, solar energy currently supplies less than 1% of our electrical energy. I know the sun supplies far in excess of all the energy we consume, but we are nowhere near being able to use solar energy at that scale yet. And if we were, the problem gets reduced down to what the best battery is for storing this energy, and hydrogen certainly fails to beat lithium, or even ultra-capacitors.