1st develop the fuel cell concept:
The principle of the fuel cell was discovered by Swiss scientist
Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838 and published in the January
1839 edition of the "Philosophical Magazine" [1]. Based on this
work, the first fuel cell was developed by Welsh scientist Sir
William Grove. A sketch was published in 1843, but it wasn't until
1959 that British engineer Francis Thomas Bacon successfully
developed a 5 kW stationary fuel cell. In 1959, a team led by Harry
Ihrig built a 15 kW fuel cell tractor for Allis-Chalmers that was
demonstrated across the US at state fairs. This system used
potassium hydroxide as the electrolyte and compressed hydrogen and
oxygen as the reactants. Later, in 1959, Bacon and his colleagues
demonstrated a practical five-kilowatt unit capable of powering a
welding machine, which led, in the 1960s to Bacon's patents being
licensed by Pratt and Whitney from the U.S. where the concepts were
used in the U.S. space program to supply electricity and drinking
water (hydrogen and oxygen being readily available from the
spacecraft tanks). Extremely expensive materials were used and the
fuel cells required very pure hydrogen and oxygen. Early fuel cells
tended to require inconveniently high operating temperatures that
were a problem in many applications. However, fuel cells were seen
to be desirable due to the large amounts of fuel available
(hydrogen & oxygen).
Further technological advances in the 1980s and 1990s, like the use
of Nafion as the membrane electrolyte, and reductions in the
quantity of expensive platinum catalyst required, have made the
prospect of fuel cells in consumer applications such as automobiles
more or less realistic. (See Hydrogen car)
1st Manufacturer of fuel cells:
United Technologies (UTX) was the first company to manufacture fuel
cells. In the 1960s the company provided NASA with fuel cells to
generate electricity for the Apollo missions. UTX's UTC Power
subsidiary [2] was the first company to manufacture and
commercialize a large, stationary fuel cell system for use as a
co-generation power plant in hospitals, universities, and large
office buildings. UTC Power continues to market this fuel cell as
the PureCell 200 [3], a 200 kW system. UTC Power continues to be
the sole supplier of fuel cells to NASA for use in space vehicles,
having supplied the Apollo missions and currently the space
shuttle, and is developing fuel cells for automobiles, buses, and
cell phone towers. UTC Power claims to be "the global leader in the
development and production of fuel cell technology" for both
transportation and on-site power markets. In the automotive fuel
cell market, UTC Power demonstrated the first fuel cell capable of
starting under freezing conditions with its proton exchange
membrane (PEM) automotive fuel cell. Note: UTC Power also uses the
UTC Fuel Cells [4] name when referring to fuel cell products.
A fuel cell powered vehicle designed by General MotorsBallard Power
Systems is a major developer and manufacturer of the PEM fuel cells
and claims to lead the world in automotive fuel cell technology.
Ford Motor Company and DaimlerChrysler are major investors in
Ballard. In 2003, most automobile companies were customers of
Ballard, with only General Motors and Toyota pursuing internal
development of fuel cells for automotive use which broke up in
2005; in 2004 Nissan and Honda started similar research programs.
GM apparently now teams with DaimlerChrysler and BMW [5].
