Fuel cell power plants are more eco-friendly than coal-based power plants as they produce no smoke or ash and have no rotating components. Fuel cells can achieve higher efficiencies of up to 55% compared to 30% for conventional thermal plants. Fuel cells can run on fuels like natural gas, ethanol, methanol, LPG, and biogas, which can be reformed to produce hydrogen.
Fuel cell power plants are more eco-friendly than coal-based power plants as they produce no smoke or ash and have no rotating components. Fuel cells can achieve higher efficiencies of up to 55% compared to 30% for conventional thermal plants. Fuel cells can run on fuels like natural gas, ethanol, methanol, LPG, and biogas, which can be reformed to produce hydrogen.
Fuel cell power plants are more eco-friendly than coal-based power plants as they produce no smoke or ash and have no rotating components. Fuel cells can achieve higher efficiencies of up to 55% compared to 30% for conventional thermal plants. Fuel cells can run on fuels like natural gas, ethanol, methanol, LPG, and biogas, which can be reformed to produce hydrogen.
Fuel cell power plants are more eco-friendly than coal-based power plants as they produce no smoke or ash and have no rotating components. Fuel cells can achieve higher efficiencies of up to 55% compared to 30% for conventional thermal plants. Fuel cells can run on fuels like natural gas, ethanol, methanol, LPG, and biogas, which can be reformed to produce hydrogen.
• Fuel cell power plants are eco-friendly, noiseless, carry no rotating
components. In contrast, in coal based stations, ash slurry, discharge of smoke through chimney adversely affect the environment. • Fuel cell power sources attain a high efficiency upto 55% whereas conventional thermal plants operate at 30% efficiency. • There is a wide choice of fuel cells. These can be operated with natural gas, ethanol, methanol, LPG and biogas supplied from local biomass. All these are hydrogen rich materials and hydrogen gas can be produced by using fuel reformer. Economics and recent development in fuel cell technology • There are a couple of main pieces that we have to look at when looking at the economics of fuel cells: The actual cost of the fuel cell stack, which is the important bit that actually turns hydrogen into electricity. The cost of the hydrogen fuel itself. The cost of the fuelling infrastructure. • The fuel cell stack is actually not that horribly expensive. Prices would currently be about $55/kW. Assuming massive economies of scale that don’t exist today — 500,000 vehicles per year. • Hydrogen fuel cell design employs catalyst layers coated on either side of a proton-exchange membrane (PEM), to catalyze the desired oxygen reduction and hydrogen oxidation reactions at the cathode and anode, respectively. • The catalyst coated membrane is further sandwiched between two carbon paper based gas diffusion layers (GDLs) to create the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). This is then placed between bipolar plates and gaskets to form one unit fuel cell, within a stack of multiple cells. • Recent catalyst developments are key to the future of fuel cell technology, and the large-scale commercialization of clean electric power for transportation and industry, as they: Reduce fuel cell costs, by reducing the use of precious metals Improve durability through innovative catalyst layer designs Increase robustness to a range of operating conditions Future potential of fuel cells • Market studies predict that large-scale application of fuel cells is expected to enter into the market of high technology electronic devices like cellular phones, laptop computers and video cameras. Casio computers have released a notebook PC powered by a fuel cell using methanol reforming. MTI Micro fuel cells, USA, has developed an external fuel cell for use in cell phones.
