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FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGY Imagine a future where power is generated cleanly and efficiently. Where buses and cars give us the performance we want, but emit no pollution to foul the air; where big power stations, and their smokestacks, or reactors, are things of the past. This is the future - a future closer than you can imagine. It is called the fuel cell engine, and it is about to revolutionise everything we know about engines and power.
Firoz Rasul is CEO of Ballard Power Systems, one of the largest suppliers of fuel cell engines in the world, based in Canada: "Fuel cells are a lot cleaner and environmentally friendly, and possibly as much as two to three times more efficient than some of the present energy sources." Mr Rasul says that fuel cell engines are also quieter because they have no moving parts. They operate at lower temperatures, so the materials used are a lot cheaper and easier to make. Finally, he believes that over a long period of time, they will be more competitive, because they will last longer. Greg continues: "But having a hydrogen tank in your car is a bit like driving around with a primed hydrogen bomb - almost a four-wheeled equivalent of the Hindenberg". And we all know what happened to the Hindenburg (see picture). In Touch spoke to Nick Haines of Afrox (Special Gases) about the danger of hydrogen tanks in cars: "One of the problems with hydrogen is that it is a gas that has to be stored under compression, and there are clearly difficulties in doing this. Another drawback is transferring the hydrogen into the vehicle".
The system was adopted by a number of manufacturers, and made smaller and lighter engines possible. Compare the two early Daimler Benz hydrogen vehicles on the left with the new methanol A-class car on the right. And even in the A-type, the first methanol prototype took up the entire back seat, but newer versions will now fit into a true four seater.
Nick Haines agrees that methanol is a far safer option for cars: "The difference with a liquid fuel is that we have an established infrastructure to put liquid fuel into motor cars. Any organic fluid that we use can be easily added into the motor vehicle." In the future, we will therefore see many cars powered by small, clean, very efficient fuel cell engines. However, vehicles are only a part of the problem. Another source of polluted air is the emission from coal burning power stations. In Mpumulanga province in South Africa these emissions, even with the use of catalytic converters, are still a massive environmental problem. Sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and particulates are not only a health hazard to the people in the area, but they have a macro effect in raising global temperatures. Greg picks up some garden waste, and explains: "And that got the creators of fuel cells thinking. Fuel cells create clean electric power using methanol; methanol is created by biomass - organic waste - just like this dried grass." Nick Haines of Afrox continues: "To produce methanol using organic waste material, you would essentially generate methane and then convert the methane to methanol, or you could use a straightforward fermentation process which will produce methanol as well." Greg visits a filling station: "So we will probably soon see pumps at filling stations marked "methanol" for fuel cell engines. But what has that got to do with power stations?" In Touch asks the question: what if you could make your own power? Cheap, clean power that would make your home self-sufficient. What if business and factories could create their own cheap clean electricity? With fuel cell generators, they can. Imagine the polluting power stations replaced by thousands of clean fuel cells in every home, business or factory. Greg concludes: "For the first time since the industrial revolution, the technology exists to create clean power using a renewable resource. Fuel cell technology could be one of the biggest paradigm shifts for the next millennium, with each factory or home providing its own power needs and creating a cleaner better world for the future". CONTACTS:
Neil Gracie
Nick Haines
Ballard Power Systems Inc.
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It all started in 1839 when a British scientist named Sir William Grove found that when hydrogen and oxygen molecules were combined through a membrane, electricity was produced. And one thing that Grove regarded as a rather quirky side effect at the time, was that the actual emission, the waste product, was water vapour.
Greg Melville-Smith points out: "Today those side-effects are not so quirky. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of vehicles around the world emitted water vapour, instead of what we usually see coming out of the exhaust pipes of our cars."
Neil Gracie, a Pollution Emission consultant, agrees: "It would be fantastic. Motor vehicles are one of the biggest sources of pollution. And ity extends beyond the vehicles we drive, to the refining of crude oil, the mining of the crude, the transporting of it. If we can remove that source, it is going to have a huge impact on the environment of the world as a whole.
Therefore, a safer means of storing, or making hydrogen, had to be found. The answer was methanol. A converter on board the car extracts hydrogen from the methanol, which it then sends to the fuel cell.
