Fuel Cell Report

Fuel Cells

Fuel cells are very important because they offer an alternative environmentally friendly fuel for transportation, which causes a major amount of the damage to or earth and the growing problem of global warming. This issue of course is a factor everywhere on our planet especially in metro areas where cars and transportation are major issues.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. A fuel cell converts the chemicals hydrogen and oxygen into water, and in the process it produces electricity. The other electrochemical device that we are all familiar with is the battery. A battery has all of its chemicals stored inside, and it converts those chemicals into electricity too. This means that a battery eventually "goes dead" and you either throw it away or recharge it. With a fuel cell, chemicals constantly flow into the cell so it never goes dead as long as there is a flow of chemicals into the cell, the electricity flows out of the cell. Most fuel cells in use today use hydrogen and oxygen as the chemicals. The most common use of a fuel cell is to power a car. This makes driving much safer for the environment and it is a cheaper use of fuel.

What we can do as a society to help fuel cells is to educated ourselves about them and other alternative fuels and support their growth so they become more mainstream. What we can hope for is that eventually these alternative fuels will be completely assimilated into our cultures and societies so that we can avoid global warming.

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