Introduction to Alternative

Energies
Unit 8 – Hydrogen and Fuel Cells

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After completing this unit you will…
• Understand what hydrogen is and how it
is used as an energy carrier
• Be able to explain various methods to
produce and store hydrogen
• Be able to explain the concept of a fuel
cell and different types of fuel cells
• Have knowledge of different applications
for fuel cells
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• What is Hydrogen
and how is it used
as an energy
carrier

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What is Hydrogen?
Taken from, Hydrogen Now!
http://www.hydrogennow.org/Facts/whatishydrogen.htm
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It’s Simple!
• Hydrogen is the simplest,
lightest element in the
universe
• It is made up of one proton
and one electron
• Because of its simplicity, it is
believed by some that
hydrogen is the root of all
elements

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It’s Light!
• When hydrogen escapes into
the atmosphere, it is so light
that it scatters immediately
upward in the air
• It’s 14 times lighter than air
• This means that a hydrogen
spill won’t pool on the
ground, pollute groundwater,
or soak into clothing—it
removes itself!
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It’s Everywhere!
• Hydrogen is the most
abundant element in
the universe, making up
more that 90% of all
matter
• On Earth, it is the third
most abundant element
in the Earth’s surface,
found in water and all
organic matter
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What’s Its Nature?
• In its normal gaseous
state, hydrogen is

colorless, odorless, tasteless,

and nontoxic
which makes it
different from every
other common fuel
we use
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What Happens When Hydrogen Burns?
• Hydrogen burns readily with oxygen, releasing
considerable energy as heat and producing
only water as exhaust
• When it burns in air, much fewer pollutants
are formed than when normal hydrocarbon
fuels such as gasoline and diesel are burned
• Because no carbon is involved, using hydrogen
fuel eliminates carbon monoxide, carbon
dioxide, and does not contribute to global
warming
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Hydrogen
• Hydrogen has the highest energy content of
any common fuel by weight
(about three times more than gasoline)

• But it has the lowest energy content by

volume
(about four times less than gasoline)

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Interest in hydrogen has
grown rapidly over the last
50 years, partially due to its
potential as a fuel…

Hydrogen is not the

energy itself but an
energy carrier, an
“avenue” for potential
energy
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An Energy Carrier
• A substance or system used to move
energy from one place to another
• The most common energy carrier today
is electricity
• Electricity carries the energy from coal,
oil, gas, and other energy sources to our
industries and homes for use with
equipment, appliances, etc.

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• Similar to electricity, hydrogen is an
energy carrier
• Different from electricity though,
hydrogen can be easily stored and
transported
• Energy can be stored and transported in
hydrogen to be used when and where
needed
• Hydrogen can be used in places where it
may be difficult to get electricity to, such
as a moving automobile
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Hydrogen has many advantages including:

Low pollution

Controllability

And safety
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• Low pollution, as when hydrogen is burned,
mixing with oxygen, the by-product is only
water
• Controllable because it burns very slowly and
with catalyst, the burn rate and temperature
of the flame can be easily adjusted
• Relatively safe, comparing to gasoline,
hydrogen’s self ignition temperature is 580° C
versus as low as 260° C for gasoline
• And hydrogen is a non-toxic gas

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• How can hydrogen
be produced and
how is it stored

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Chemical Production of Hydrogen
• Historically, hydrogen was produced with
methods that involved passing steam over red
hot iron filings
• The iron combined with the oxygen on the
steam releasing the hydrogen
• Later, hydrogen was produced by reacting iron
with sulfuric acid

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• Today, modern production includes
methods such as reacting
aluminum chips with caustic acid
which is used for meteorological
balloons
• Hydrogen is produced for many
uses including the food industry,
the production of ammonia, small
amounts used in fuel cells to power
automobiles, and utilities

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The majority of the hydrogen used today is
produced from fossil fuels
• The hydrocarbons and alcohols can produce
hydrogen when submitted to partial oxidation,
steam reforming, and thermal decomposition
• These processes yield syngas, which is a
combination of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide
• There are many processes for hydrogen
production including chemical, electrolytic,
thermolytic, photolytic, and biological
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Electrolytic Hydrogen
• This process used in the early 1900’s, but not
very economical at the time and replaced by
the less expensive fossil fuel plants
• Today, with the fossil fuel cost increasing, this
has become a viable option
• Produces very pure, 99.999%, hydrogen and
popular in food and pharmaceutical industries
• The process shows potential for hydrogen gas
stations for refueling of fuel cells
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Thermolytic Hydrogen
• At high temperatures a small percentage of
water molecules will separate into hydrogen
and oxygen
• There are two different methods for the
dissociation of water
– Direct dissociation uses very high temperatures,
over 2000° K to dissociate less than 1% of water,
and over 3000° K to get over 10 %
– Chemical dissociation does not require as high of
temperatures, 600° C to 850° C, using various
chemicals to aide in the reaction 21
Photolytic Hydrogen
• Hydrogen can be produced using solar
light energy, with each step of the reaction
taking a specific amount of energy
1. Hydrogen is first separated leaving one
hydrogen with oxygen and the separated
hydrogen
2. Next the remaining hydrogen is separated
from the oxygen
3. And in the final step, two oxygen combine
and two hydrogen combine
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Photobiologic Hydrogen Production
• A relative new process being studied
• When exposed to light, plant species
produce oxygen, and in the dark they
consume oxygen
• “In the dark”, if the plant has water
and consumes oxygen, hydrogen will
be released
• The amount of hydrogen released is
minimal relative to the mass of
biological material needed
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Hydrogen Production Plants
• Typically start with a fossil
fuel such as natural gas
• Large plants, such as those
used for utilities or for the
production of ammonia,
are present today
• For automobiles, where there is great interest
in fuel cells, a compact version of this
“hydrogen production plant” is needed
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Hydrogen Storage
• There is great potential for hydrogen as a
future energy source
• It is capable of very high efficiencies, easy to
manage, and very friendly to the environment
• The gas is easy to transform into usable
energy and relatively easy to acquire, but the
difficulty lies in the distribution and storage
of the gas

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 Distribution may not be too difficult
as it can be moved similar to natural gas,
transported with various tanker trucks and
distributed through the existing pipelines to
residential and industrial sites
• Although the bulk distribution of hydrogen
would not be a major hurdle, the problem lies
in the motor vehicles
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• Fuel cells are a potential power source
for the automobile or any other machine
that has a gasoline engine or similar
power source
• Getting hydrogen to the fuel cell on a
“non-stationary” device is where some
difficulty lies
• Hydrogen used by a moving vehicle must
either be created by the vehicle itself or
somehow conveniently stored on the
vehicle, like gas in a gas tank
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• Hydrogen can be stored in two different ways:
1. As the gas alone in some sort of container
2. Extracted from a substance as needed for use
• Storing the hydrogen itself can be done
different ways: as a compressed gas,
refrigerated liquid, or a combination of both
• Storage of hydrogen to be extracted is done
several different ways including absorption of
the gas on a given substrate or hydrogen rich
compounds

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Compressed Gas
• A relatively simple method is to store the
hydrogen as a compressed gas
• The main concern for compressed gas storage
is the strength, performance, size, and weight
of the container
• A main characteristic of the container is the
gravimetric concentration, the mass of the
maximum amount of gas that can be stored
over the mass of the container itself

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Cryogenic Hydrogen
• Although the concept of liquid
hydrogen was first developed in
1898, it wasn’t until just recently
that the concept was looked at for
storage
• Recently looked at by NASA for
storing hydrogen as a fuel for space
craft, with largest storage unit of
this type at Cape Canaveral holding
240,000 kg of liquid hydrogen
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Storage by Absorption
• Hydrogen molecules can be readily absorbed
by carbon, and are held in place by weak Van
der Waals forces which take little energy to
separate when using as a fuel source
• Many different systems have been tried for
this technology
• The drawback at this time for these systems is
that they require high pressure and low
temperatures

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Storage in Chemical Compounds
• The main difficulty in the storage of hydrogen
is its low density
• A possible solution to this is to associate
hydrogen with other chemicals that have a
higher density
• This process would consist of associating
hydrogen with the chemical for storage; then
when the hydrogen is needed for fuel,
disassociate it

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Hydrogen Storage-Carriers
• One way to store hydrogen is with carriers,
material that is synthesized rich in hydrogen
• When hydrogen is needed, the material is
chemically reformed
• This process also is of great interest to the fuel
cell vehicles with few difficulties to overcome
as a viable solution
• The efficiencies of this system are relatively
low, for example, methanol at only 55%
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Metal hydrides
• A number of elements that can be used as
metal hydrides include magnesium, iron,
titanium, zirconium, with others
• Hydrides are formed when hydrogen is
combined with these elements and are
referred to as binary
• This exchange of hydrogen gas with the
elements is referred to as absorption when
the hydrogen is taken in and desorption when
the hydrogen is released
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• Compared to gasoline (4700
MJ per 100 kg) a hydride can
have 515 MJ per 100 kg
Accounting for the higher
efficiency of hydrogen, it takes
about 3 times the weight of a
hydrate to produce an equal
amount of energy compared to
gasoline
• Also promising for hydrides is the fact that
they need less time to regenerate compared
to batteries
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Hydride Heat Pumps
• Since a hydride absorbs heat when it releases
hydrogen, it is possible to use them as a heat
pump
• In actuality, the containers would be fixed and
there would be a mechanism to move the
fluid from inside to out. This system could
also be used as a refrigerator
• Storage is a key factor in the innovation of
hydrogen and the use of fuel cells

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• How does a fuel
cell work and what
are some different
types of fuel cells

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From reactions to energy
• A mechanical heat engine uses a fuel such as
gasoline, oil, or wood which is burned creating
a chemical reaction
• The reaction produces heat which through
various mechanisms is transferred to some
usable energy such as electricity
• The overall process is limited and very
inefficient

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• Converting electricity directly from the
chemical reaction is much more efficient
Especially since the chemical bond of most
molecules is electric in nature
• Devices that convert chemical energy directly
into electricity are referred to as…

electrochemical cells
• Because they convert chemical energy directly
into electricity, they are much more efficient
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• Electrochemical cells can be batteries used in
toys, automobile batteries, and fuel cells
• The terms “cell” and “battery” are basically
the same with
• Cell typically referring to a single unit
• And battery referring to a series of units
• Terminology is not consistent though as in the
example of a “9 volt battery” which is a single
cell or a “fuel cell” which is typically a series of
cells or a battery
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There are two categories of batteries or cells
• Expendable are batteries that we get at the
store, use for toys or other devises, then
dispose when they are “dead”
• Non-expendable are either rechargeable or
refuelable
– Rechargeable devises would be like our car
battery, or cell phone batteries
– Refuelable devices would be the fuel cells, devices
that have a consumable fuel, typically a liquid,
that needs replenished
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Electrochemical (Fuel) Cells
• Consists of a source and a sink of electrons
• The reaction that takes place in an
electrochemical cell is made up of two “half”
reactions occurring in two separate regions
• The two regions are separated by an
electrolyte that allows the conduction of ions
but not electrons

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• The source region (anode) contains a
substance such as hydrogen that releases
electrons; the release of electrons is referred
to as oxidation
• The electrons flow from the source region to
the sink region (cathode) with a substance
that gains electrons; the gaining of electrons is
referred to as reduction
• A current capable of doing work is then
generated in the opposite direction of the
electron flow, from the cathode to the anode
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• If conductors (electrodes) are present on each
side and are connected, the electrons will flow
from one side to the other
• The external circuit is only a path though, and
does not “force” the electrons to flow
• The circuit could be thought of as a “pipe”

The pipe would be a path but the water would

have to be forced to flow through the pipe by
some means
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To see how a fuel cell works
From the web site http://www.fctec.com/fctec_howorks.asp

Select the “View Animation” radio button

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• There are several kinds of fuel cells each
operating a bit differently

In general, a hydrogen fuel cell operates…

• Hydrogen atoms enter a fuel cell at the anode
where a chemical reaction strips them of their
electrons
• The hydrogen atoms are now “ionized,” and
carry a positive electrical charge
• The negatively charged electrons provide the
current through wires to do work
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Some of the more common fuel cells

• Solid Oxide

• Phosphoric Acid and P.E.M.

• Alkali

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• What are some
different
applications for
fuel cells

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Fuel Cell Applications
• Fuel cells are in the innovation growth stage, a
time with new and radical developments
• With these developments, new applications
will come and greater technology
• The two main current
applications are
stationary power
plants and the
automobile
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Power plants
• Fuel cells are very attractive bringing
advantages such as very little noise and
pollutants
• Other advantages
include the low
mass and volume
compared to
output of the
systems and the
high efficiencies
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Automobiles
• Advantages are
similar for the
automobile, but the
disadvantage is the
production cost of
the fuel cells
• Just comparing the power source, fuel cells
have the advantage with higher efficiencies,
less weight, less size, less noise, and fewer
pollutants
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• The disadvantage for fuel cells
comes from the high cost of
production
• The current gasoline engine used for
the automobile is mass produced
with manufacturing plants
• Fuel cells do not have any of this
currently and the cost to develop
this industry makes the “entry” cost
for fuel cells very high

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Other applications
• Include space travel where
fuel cells are commonly used
and also in military
applications such as
submarines
As this technology evolves,
there will be many more
applications driving further
innovation of fuel cells

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Work Cited
Da Rosa, A. V. (2005). Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Processes. Burlington, MA,
USA: Elsevier Inc.

http://www.fctec.com/fctec_basics.asp

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/IntermediateHydrogen.html

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