Fuel cells

There are many uses for fuel cells — for example, all major carmakers are working to commercialise a fuel cell car. Fuel cells are powering buses, boats, trains, planes and scooters. There are fuel cell powered vending machines, vacuum cleaners and road signs. Miniature fuel cells for cellular phones, laptop computers and portable electronics are on their way to market.
Many hospitals, credit card centres, police stations and banks are using fuel cells to provide power to their facilities. Wastewater treatment plants and landfills may use fuel cells to convert the methane gas they produce into electricity. The possibilities are endless.



The foundation for today's fuel cell technology was laid in 1839.  It was the Welsh justice and physician Sir William Robert Grove (1811-1896) who developed the first working prototype.
Grove's contemporaries underestimated the importance of his discovery and the fuel cell was forgotten. Only in the 1950s, against the background of the Cold War, was this idea taken up again. Space travel and military technology required compact and powerful energy sources.

The beginnings of modern day fuel cell use were in spacecraft and submarines requiring electric power without the possibility of using internal combustion engines. On spacecraft, NASA decided in favour of direct chemical generation of electric power by fuel cells, because traditional batteries were too heavy. 
The civil use of fuel cells has become interesting only during recent years. At the beginning of the 1990s scientists and engineers developed various new concepts and technologies which have made it possible to increase efficiency continually whilst, at the same time decreasing costs.