FUEL CELLS: a new kind of fuel

Most of us don’t understand all the intricacies of a car’s internal combustion engine: we just pump expensive gasoline into the tank, which the engine burns to make the car go.

In contrast, a fuel cell makes electrical power through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, not through combustion of fossil fuels. While hydrogen fuel cell cars do exist, the technology is still years away from commercial scale. A more immediate use for fuel cells could be energy storage.

“In general, fuel cells allow us to store energy very economically,” said Carolina chemical engineering professor John Weidner.

Electrical batteries are the only current practical means for storing energy, and on a small scale, they work fine. But on a larger scale—at the power-plant level, say—they’re not very practical. Fuel cells, on the other hand, could help level loads in power generation by supplying additional power when demand is high and storing power when demand is lower.

Fuel cells could also power laptop computers and other personal electronics with a much longer battery life. In fact, the devices can already be found in some cellular telephone towers to provide backup power when inclement weather disrupts electrical power service. And fuel-cell companies are selling forklifts with fuel cells, eliminating downtime when batteries need to be recharged or replaced.

“One reason people want to move to a hydrogen economy is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” said John Van Zee, a chemical engineering and director of the University’s Center for Fuel Cells. “A lot of them see it as a matter of energy security.” Another major reason for moving to a hydrogen economy, he said, is the need to reduce pollutants and greenhouse gases.

“There are many who argue against a hydrogen economy, citing present-day costs to produce hydrogen and the challenges of transporting hydrogen gas,” Van Zee said. “They’re wedded to a fossil-fuel technology, a technology that cannot be sustained over the long term, and that is why we do research.”

Along with some two dozen industrial partners, the Center for Fuel Cells has a research agreement with the Korea Institute for Energy Research, and the center exchanges professors and students with the Fraunhofer Institute in Freiberg, Germany.

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