Twenty-First Century Power Generation - Fuel Cells, A Review

1995 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Martin R. Fry

This Paper describes the principles of the fuel cell as a power (and usually heat) generation device, including a discussion of the supporting system, or Balance of Plant - an essential necessity for commercial applications. It goes on to describe the variety of fuel cell types, their status and potential applications. Reference is then made to the major international participants in fuel cell R&D and the rapidly growing UK programme, supported both by the DTI and EPSRC. Finally, an attempt is made to project timescales for the emergence of commercial products, with due recognition for the barriers to development and the rapid progress towards reduced environmental impact being made by conventional alternative power sources.

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Young-Woo Lee ◽  
SeungNam Cha ◽  
Kyung-Won Park ◽  
Jung Inn Sohn ◽  
Jong Min Kim

Fuel cells, converting chemical energy from fuels into electricity directly without the need for combustion, are promising energy conversion devices for their potential applications as environmentally friendly, energy efficient power sources. However, to take fuel cell technology forward towards commercialization, we need to achieve further improvements in electrocatalyst technology, which can play an extremely important role in essentially determining cost-effectiveness, performance, and durability. In particular, platinum- (Pt-) based electrocatalyst approaches have been extensively investigated and actively pursued to meet those demands as an ideal fuel cell catalyst due to their most outstanding activity for both cathode oxygen reduction reactions and anode fuel oxidation reactions. In this review, we will address important issues and recent progress in the development of Pt-based catalysts, their synthesis, and characterization. We will also review snapshots of research that are focused on essential dynamics aspects of electrocatalytic reactions, such as the shape effects on the catalytic activity of Pt-based nanostructures, the relationships between structural morphology of Pt-based nanostructures and electrochemical reactions on both cathode and anode electrodes, and the effects of composition and electronic structure of Pt-based catalysts on electrochemical reaction properties of fuel cells.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (20) ◽  
pp. 6827
Author(s):  
Chukwuma Ogbonnaya ◽  
Chamil Abeykoon ◽  
Adel Nasser ◽  
Ali Turan ◽  
Cyril Sunday Ume

Integrated photovoltaic-fuel cell (IPVFC) systems, amongst other integrated energy generation methodologies are renewable and clean energy technologies that have received diverse research and development attentions over the last few decades due to their potential applications in a hydrogen economy. This article systematically updates the state-of-the-art of IPVFC systems and provides critical insights into the research and development gaps needed to be filled/addressed to advance these systems towards full commercialization. Design methodologies, renewable energy-based microgrid and off-grid applications, energy management strategies, optimizations and the prospects as self-sustaining power sources were covered. IPVFC systems could play an important role in the upcoming hydrogen economy since they depend on solar hydrogen which has almost zero emissions during operation. Highlighted herein are the advances as well as the technical challenges to be surmounted to realize numerous potential applications of IPVFC systems in unmanned aerial vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, agricultural applications, telecommunications, desalination, synthesis of ammonia, boats, buildings, and distributed microgrid applications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
João P. Cotovio ◽  
Tiago G. Fernandes

Liver disease is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, leading to the death of approximately 2 million people per year. Current therapies include orthotopic liver transplantation, however, donor organ shortage remains a great challenge. In addition, the development of novel therapeutics has been limited due to the lack of in vitro models that mimic in vivo liver physiology. Accordingly, hepatic cell lineages derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) represent a promising cell source for liver cell therapy, disease modelling, and drug discovery. Moreover, the development of new culture systems bringing together the multiple liver-specific hepatic cell types triggered the development of hPSC-derived liver organoids. Therefore, these human liver-based platforms hold great potential for clinical applications. In this review, the production of the different hepatic cell lineages from hPSCs, including hepatocytes, as well as the emerging strategies to generate hPSC-derived liver organoids will be assessed, while current biomedical applications will be highlighted.


Author(s):  
Talal Ous ◽  
Elvedin Mujic ◽  
Nikola Stosic

Water injection in twin-screw compressors was examined in order to develop effective humidification and cooling schemes for fuel cell stacks as well as cooling for compressors. The temperature and the relative humidity of the air at suction and exhaust of the compressor were monitored under constant pressure and water injection rate and at variable compressor operating speeds. The experimental results showed that the relative humidity of the outlet air was increased by the water injection. The injection tends to have more effect on humidity at low operating speeds/mass flow rates. Further humidification can be achieved at higher speeds as a higher evaporation rate becomes available. It was also found that the rate of power produced by the fuel cell stack was higher than the rate used to run the compressor for the same amount of air supplied. The efficiency of the balance of plant was, therefore, higher when more air is delivered to the stack. However, this increase in the air supply needs additional subsystems for further humidification/cooling of the balance-of-plant system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Allen Grace Niego ◽  
Olivier Raspé ◽  
Naritsada Thongklang ◽  
Rawiwan Charoensup ◽  
Saisamorn Lumyong ◽  
...  

The oudemansielloid/xeruloid taxa Hymenopellis, Mucidula, Oudemansiella, and Xerula are genera of Basidiomycota that constitute an important resource of bioactive compounds. Numerous studies have shown antimicrobial, anti-oxidative, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and other bioactivities of their extracts. The bioactive principles can be divided into two major groups: (a) hydrophilic polysaccharides with relatively high molecular weights and (b) low molecular medium polar secondary metabolites, such as the antifungal strobilurins. In this review, we summarize the state of the art on biodiversity, cultivation of the fungi and bioactivities of their secondary metabolites and discuss future applications. Although the strobilurins are well-documented, with commercial applications as agrochemical fungicides, there are also other known compounds from this group that have not yet been well-studied. Polysaccharides, dihydro-citrinone phenol A acid, scalusamides, and acetylenic lactones such as xerulin, also have potential applications in the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and medicinal market and should be further explored. Further studies are recommended to isolate high quality bioactive compounds and fully understand their modes of action. Given that only few species of oudemansielloid/xeruloid mushrooms have been explored for their production of secondary metabolites, these taxa represent unexplored sources of potentially useful and novel bioactive metabolites.


2012 ◽  
Vol 485 ◽  
pp. 84-87
Author(s):  
Jun Fang ◽  
Yong Bin Wu ◽  
Yan Mei Zhang

A series of hydroxyl conducting anion exchange membranes based on the copolymer of vinylbenzyl chloride, butyl methacrylate and fluoro-polyacrylate were prepared by radical polymerization, quaternization and alkalization. The reaction conditions of polymerization were discussed and the potential applications of the resulting membranes in alkaline fuel cells were assessed. The results show that the membranes have adequate conductivity for fuel cell application.


Author(s):  
Nicola Zuliani ◽  
Rodolfo Taccani ◽  
Robert Radu

High temperature PEM (HTPEM) fuel cell based on polybenzimidazole polymer (PBI) and phosphoric acid, can be operated at temperature between 120°C and 180°C. Reactants humidification is not required and CO content up to 1% in fuel can be tolerated, affecting only marginally performance. This is what makes HTPEM fuel cells very attractive, as low quality reformed hydrogen can be used and water management problems are avoided. This paper aims to present the preliminary experimental results obtained on a HTPEM fuel cell fed with LPG using a compact steam reformer. The analysis focus on the reformer start up transient, on the influence of the steam to carbon ratio on reformate CO content and on the single fuel cell performance at different operating conditions. By analyzing the mass and energy balances of the fuel processor, fuel cell system, and balance-of-plant, a previously developed system simulation model has been used to provide critical assessment on the conversion efficiency for a 1 kWel system. The current study attempts to extend the previously published analyses of integrated HTPEM fuel cell systems.


Fuel Cells ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 809-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Bizon ◽  
G. Iana ◽  
E. Kurt ◽  
P. Thounthong ◽  
M. Oproescu ◽  
...  

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