**1.3. Component of a fuel cell**

**1. Introduction**

232 Electrodeposition of Composite Materials

inconvenient.

**1.1. Timeline for fuel cell development**

**1.2. Definition of fuel cell**

electricity, heat, and water[4].

over conventional energy sources:

different ways of reducing platinum load required for PEM cells.

The study of fuel cell is highly relevant to solving ongoing worldwide threats of pollution as well as meeting up with the future energy demands for technological advancement. Fuel cells have been proposed for use in automobiles as a replacement of the conventional internal combustion engines. Fuel cells produce power in an entirely different way compared to internal combustion engines and storage batteries. Fuel cell is an electrochemical system that works on reverse electrolysis combining hydrogen from fuel with oxygen from air to produce electric power directly. Heat and non-polluted water vapor are the only by-products of these systems. Internal combustion engines[3] are powered from the combustion of hydrocarbon fuel through the Carnot cycles. The combustion process releases harmful gases such as CO, CO2, SO2, etc., into the environment, polluting it and affecting the energy balance of the ecosystem through global warming and damaging the protective ozone layers. Conversely, batteries are chemical energy storage devices that only produce power intermittently, as they must be recharged after being exhausted. The recharging process is always lengthy and

Fuel cell was first discovered by William Grove in 1839 when he thought it possible to produce electric current through reverse electrolysis by combining hydrogen and oxygen together. This awareness made scientists throughout the 19th century to conduct several studies until Francis Thomas Bacon, a British scientist, worked on developing alkaline fuel cells in 1958. This technology was utilized for NASA Apollo spacecraft program and was licensed to Pratt and Whitney. Through the research work of Thomas Grubb and Leonard Niedrach in 1960, polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) technology was invented at General Electric (GE). A small fuel cell was further developed in the mid-1960s by General Electric for US Army Signal Corps and US electronic division of the Navy's Bureau of ships. In the year 1970, GE developed a novel water-electrolysis technology for undersea life support leading to the US Navy Oxygen Generating Plant. The British Royal Navy adopted this technology in the early 1980s for their submarine fleet. In the 1990s, Los Alamos National Lab and Texas A&M University researched

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (e.g., hydrogen, methanol, etc.) and an oxidant (air or pure oxygen) in the presence of a catalyst into

Economy benefits of fuel cells are possible as a result of its fantastic flexibility and features

**•** Fuel cells produce clean energy through electrochemical conversion of the fuel. Therefore,

they are environmentally friendly because of the zero or very low emissions.

The fuel cell assemblage which comprises bipolar plate (BP), membrane electrode assembly (MEA), gas diffusion layers (GDL), catalyst layer (Nafion®), seal, and the end plates function together as heat and electrical generating system[5].

**Figure 1.** Showing components made up of bipolar plate stacks (www.what-when-how.com)
