Fuel Cell Technology: Sustainable Solution to Combat Climate Change

This report discusses the increasing concerns regarding global warming and the importance of sustainable technologies like fuel cells in mitigating climate change. It highlights the history of fuel cell technology, starting with William Robert Grove's invention, and emphasizes the cleaner operational nature of fuel cells compared to conventional fossil fuels. The report underlines the potential of fuel cells in reducing vehicular emissions and promoting a greener environment, referencing their early adoption by NASA and current commercial applications in the automotive industry, including Toyota's fuel cell vehicles and global fuel cell bus projects. It concludes by advocating for the wider implementation of fuel cell technology to address climate change and environmental degradation. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study resources for students.

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Introduction
With the growing rise of global temperature owing to climate change, the issue of global
warming is one of the most serious concerns of the changing world of today. It is time to reduce
the dependency on fossil fuels and invest in technologies that promote cleaner sources of energy
and low emissions. With the advancement of technologies the development of environment
friendly technologies has been boosted and the commercialization of these technologies have
been attempted to reduce the emission from fossil fuels. The most common renewable sources of
energy consisting of the solar, wind and hydro power have contributed greatly to a greener
energy but in order to reduce the vehicular emission more sustainable technologies needs to be
derived (Fuelcelltoday.com, 2019). The Fuel Cell technologies have been one of the recent
developments in the sphere of green energy and the several elements have been used to derive
the required amount of the energy through conversion of potential chemical energy into electrical
energy.
William Robert Grove is credited with the invention of the first fuel cells in the form of a
voltaic cell. Grove had invented the fuel cell by exposing two different acids to the electrodes
Zinc and Platinum. The acids were separated by a porous ceramic pot. The invention by Grove
was made in 1839 and was the first to represent that association of oxygen and hydrogen can
produce electrical energy. He thus developed the first fuel cell producing electrical energy by
combining hydrogen and oxygen in a controlled apparatus (Blomen & Mugerwa, 2013).
The hydrogen fuel cell generates energy through the process of electrolysis by generating
hydrogen and then combining oxygen as a fuel to generate electricity. The process being a
chemical reaction involving gases available in the natural environment do not emit or produce

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and particulate as fossil fuels do (Kordesch & Simader, 1995). The most important attribute of
Fuels cells are their nature of operation being cleaner than conventional sources of energy. The
implementation of Fuel cells can reduce vehicular emissions considerably thereby reducing the
amount of green house gas in the environment thereby reducing the impact of climate change in
the environment.
The potential of fuel cell in addressing the bigger challenges of climate change and
environmental degradation is immense. The fuel cells being a cleaner source of energy have no
emissions, have easier and cleaner access to the fuel namely Oxygen and hydrogen which are
easily accessible without impacting much of the environment. Along with the generation of
electricity through fuel cells are also devoid of noise pollution (Jacobson et al., 2005). The major
emission in the atmosphere is contributed through the emissions from the vehicles that run of
fuels derived from conventional sources of energy mostly forms of carbon including petroleum
and other by products. Thus the replacement of these services by Hydrogen fuel cell can create a
paramount impact in the environment reducing the effects of global warming and climate change
(Yoshida & Kojima, 2015).
The implementation of Fuel cell in automobile industry in Europe has started in a
commercial manner. The first use of Fuel cell was done by the General Motors in 1950s by
inventing a proton exchange fuel membrane. However the first industrial use of the Fuel cell was
done by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1960s for their space
mission in the Apollo Spacecraft. Since then the technology has evolved many folds and have
seen commercial applications in 2007 with integrated units in United States and Europe
(Fuelcelltoday.com, 2019).

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Toyota has introduced vehicles powered by Fuel cells. The major vehicular corporations
including Toyota, Hyundai and Honda have brought their Fuel cell vehicles. Tourism involves a
heavy usage of vehicles and therefore the use of fuel cell powered vehicles can reduce the
emission from the conventional vehicles of today. This can promote a greener and cleaner
tourism in the long run.
The projects of the Fuel Cell Bus Club in association with the CUTE (Clean Urban Transport for
Europe) ECTOS (Ecological City Transport System) and STEP (Sustainable Transport Energy
for Perth) is currently operating a fleet of Fuel cell powered Buses across the world. These
projects are paving the way for the future of fuel cell vehicles which can greatly contribute to the
eco friendly expansion of the tourism. (Saxe et al., 2008)

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References:
Blomen, L. J., & Mugerwa, M. N. (Eds.). (2013). Fuel cell systems. Springer Science & Business
Media.
Fuelcelltoday.com. (2019). Fuel Cell History - Fuel Cell Today. Retrieved from
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/history
Jacobson, M. Z., Colella, W. G., & Golden, D. M. (2005). Cleaning the air and improving health
with hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Science, 308(5730), 1901-1905.
Kordesch, K. V., & Simader, G. R. (1995). Environmental impact of fuel cell
technology. Chemical Reviews, 95(1), 191-207.
Saxe, M., Folkesson, A., & Alvfors, P. (2008). Energy system analysis of the fuel cell buses
operated in the project: Clean Urban Transport for Europe. Energy, 33(5), 689-711.
Yoshida, T., & Kojima, K. (2015). Toyota MIRAI fuel cell vehicle and progress toward a future
hydrogen society. The Electrochemical Society Interface, 24(2), 45-49.