ABSTRACT

There’s little doubt that getting to a low-carbon, low-cost, clean-energy economy is the ultimate
goal. That’s a big reason why solar, wind, and geothermal energy have all seen strong growth
over the past two years. And it’s ignited a debate about which of the alternatives to coal, oil and
natural gas plants are best.

That debate includes fuel cells.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts a source fuel into an electric current. It
generates electricity inside a cell through reactions between a fuel and an oxidant, triggered in
the presence of an electrolyte. The reactants flow into the cell, and the reaction products flow out
of it, while the electrolyte remains within it. Fuel cells can operate continuously as long as the
necessary reactant and oxidant flows are maintained.

We are aimed at determining the effectiveness of a fuel cell during unloaded and operating
conditions. A polymer electrolyte membrane coated with platinum catalyst is embedded between
two graphite plates of dimensions 13x10x22.5. The plates are micro machined to create flow
channels. The Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) are placed between two conducting metal
plates that are bolted to prevent any disturbance of positions. These metal plates act as current
collectors.

The hydrogen gas is sent through the anode (graphite plate), while oxygen is distributed by
cathode, where it flows through the channels, to react with the PEM. The electrons produced are
collected by the current collector in the anode side and are conducted back to the catalyst on
cathode side where they can recombine with hydrogen ions and oxygen to form water. The
design that has been fabricated is of natural convection type that takes up the oxygen available in
the atmosphere to produce current.

We obtained the result that a fuel cell of the above design specifications produced a current of
0.75 v, which was tested using a DC motor fan.
The only emission from fuel cells is water when hydrogen is fed to the fuel cell. The option of
generating hydrogen renewably from water using wind or solar energy and using it in a fuel cell
is, therefore, a very attractive zero-emission option.