Fuel Cell Vehicle - Description and Purpose of Fuel Cells in Vehicles

Description and Purpose of Fuel Cells in Vehicles

Further information: Fuel cell

All fuel cells are made up of three parts: an electrolyte, an anode and a cathode. In principle, a hydrogen fuel cell functions like a battery, producing electricity, which can run an electric motor. Instead of requiring recharging, however, the fuel cell can be refilled with hydrogen. Different types of fuel cells include Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells, Direct Methanol Fuel Cells, Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cells, Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, and Regenerative Fuel Cells.

As of 2009, motor vehicles used most of the petroleum consumed in the U.S. and produced over 60% of the carbon monoxide emissions and about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. In contrast, a vehicle fueled with pure hydrogen emits few pollutants, producing mainly water and heat, although the production of the hydrogen would create pollutants unless the hydrogen used in the fuel cell were produced using only renewable energy.

Read more about this topic:  Fuel Cell Vehicle

Famous quotes containing the words description and, description, purpose, fuel, cells and/or vehicles:

    He hath achieved a maid
    That paragons description and wild fame;
    One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

    Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    The particular source of frustration of women observing their own self-study and measuring their worth as women by the distance they kept from men necessitated that a distance be kept, and so what vindicated them also poured fuel on the furnace of their rage. One delight presumed another dissatisfaction, but their hatefulness confessed to their own lack of power to please. They hated men because they needed husbands, and they loathed the men they chased away for going.
    Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)

    They are sworn enemies of lyric poetry.
    In prison they accompany the jailer,
    Enter cells to hear confessions.
    Their short-end comes down
    When you least expect it.
    Charles Simic (b. 1938)

    Only by the supernatural is a man strong; nothing is so weak as an egotist. Nothing is mightier than we, when we are vehicles of a truth before which the state and the individual are alike ephemeral.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)