Ceramics in fuel cells

This paper reports that although the prospect for commercial fuel cells is still futuristic, with companies predicting market penetration toward the year 2000, there is increasing effort now being directed into ceramic development for these perennially promising devices. A recent seminar detailed the current research and applications effort, while pointing our several ceramic materials problems which remain to be overcome. Historically, optimism about fuel cell breakthrough has been more evident that has been actual success, with the original invention by Grove in 1829 remaining a laboratory curiosity. Merely dipping two platinum electrodes into hydrogen-rich and oxygen-rich electrolyte to generate electrochemical power was never likely to be a commercial winner. Famous chemists such as Mond (1889), the forerunner of ICI, who dreamed of direct conversion of coal into electrons, or such as Ostwald (1894), who fantasized that fuel cells would power the twentieth century, admitted defeat and gave up their quests. However, the Bacon alkaline fuel cell developed by Pratt and Whitney (East Hartford, CT) for NASA's Apollo program was successful. Unfortunately, it was an order of magnitude too expensive for terrestrial applications and demanded pure hydrogen and oxygen to run it.