Apollo space program

The binscienccs research community is now embarked on a program whose boldness, even audacity, has prompted comparisons with such visionary efforts as the Apollo space program and the Manhattan project. That life scientists should conceive such an amhitious project is not remarkable what is surprising—at least at lirst blush—is that the project should trace its roots to the Department of Energy. 

The fuel cell is nothing new, despite the excitement it is now generating. It has been around since 1839, when Welsh physics professor William Grove created an operating model based on platinum and zinc components. Much later, the U.S. Apollo space program used fuel cells for certain power needs in the Apollo space vehicles that traveled from the Earth to the Moon. 

Because this reaction produces an enormous amount of energy from a small amount of reactants, it was used to drive the rockets on the Lunar Excursion Modules (LEMs) of the Apollo space program. If 2.0 moles of dimethyl hydrazine are mixed with 4.0 moles of dinitrogen tetroxide, and the reaction achieves an 85% yield, how many moles of N2, H2O, and CO2 will be formed ... 

A considerable amount of LH2 was required starting with the US Apollo space program leading to the design and construction of large-scale plants. The liquefaction plants in the world are summarized in Table 5-5 presently revealing a total capacity of 265 tons of LH2 per day, but not more than 19 t/d in Europe. Two major plants in the USA, West Palm Beach, FL, with a 31 t/d capacity and Sacramento, CA, with a 54 t/d capacity, ceased operation in the meantime. 

Alkaline fuel cells (AFC) using aqueous KOH as electrolyte were the first type of fuel cells with practical applications at the beginning of the last century [9] but the formation of carbonate in the liquid electrolyte due to the CO2 contamination in the oxidant gas stream has limited its application to systems miming with pure oxygen, such as the fuel cells used by the NASA in the I960 Apollo space program, and currently used in the shuttle missions [10]. 

Later it was used for aerospace/rocket development (including the Apollo space program) to avoid errors in the relatively small sample sizes associated with costly rocket technology. 

In the following years the development of fuel cells was mainly performed by scientific and research institutions. Due to the high costs the applications were hmited to niche markets as military applications in submarines. For the Apollo space program the fuel cell was also used. An overview of the most important steps of the development of fuel-cell technology is presented in Table 5.5 [5.63]. 

AFC has the longest history of all fuel cell types. While it was first developed around the 1930s, the technology was further developed by NASA for the Apollo space program. 

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