TECH STUFF: FUEL CELL

Picture this. U r on a long drive on a hot summer afternoon. Then in the middle of nowhere, u feel thirsty, only to find that u r out of drinking water. So what do u do, just walk down n open your exhaust pipe (which was closed till then) & just pour out some pure consumable water! Astonished. Think I’ve gone cuckoo. NO, actually this just might be possible in the near future. To know more read on.

Maybe some of u wud have already understood I’m referring to fuel cell powered vehicles. So what exactly is this fuel cell? Well it is basically a stack of Proton Exchange Membranes (PEMs), which take in hydrogen (stored as fuel onboard) and oxygen (abundant in the atmosphere) & carries out a reaction we all r so familiar with

2H2 + O2 à 2H2O + ENERGY
(though all this is not so easy to achieve practically)

This energy in turn can be used to power the vehicle, or (as in most cases) produce electricity to charge batteries which power the electric motors running the vehicle.

You’ll ask, y go about all this trouble? Firstly, as we all know petrol & diesel r becoming dearer by the day (the nightmares one gets nowadays r that govt has again hiked the prices), n fuel cell cuts out our dependence on them. Then there r ZERO EMISSIONS (yes u read it right). Infact the exhaust is actually desirable! Now, it can either be consumed, or better still, sold back to ur fuel station (now this is interesting!) so that they can break it down to produce H2 and O2 (n ensure we don’t run out of air to breathe). Also, as there r no explosions going on in the fuel cell, there absolutely no noise. Apart from the whizz of the electric motors’ the vehicle is absolutely silent! Now this may not be music to everyone’s ear (people love vehicles for their sound too, remember RX100), but goes down well with the regulations.

But hold ur horses, u can’t buy the stuff just yet. There is a catch err…there r catches. Fuel cell tech is not commercially viable on mass production level, as yet. The only way it can be made more accessible to the common man is by producing it in millions (quite a vicious circle, I say). Another problem is that there is no system in place (let alone being safe) for storage and distribution of H2. It is so because H2 is one of the most explosive gases (well has to be, considering it powers the SUN). But contrary to the myth, producing H2 though is not very difficult/expensive.

Things have started moving though. UK just got its first H2 supply station & Mercedes has leased some fuel cell cars to Deutsche post. Well the signs r good & technology has an uncanny knack of surprising everyone with its blistering advances. Who knows, a few yrs later on our kids may actually be drinking out of the exhaust of their bikes. And that’s just a small part of the big story.

P.S.: pic is of the Mercedes fuel cell car.