Fuel cells future trends

Ukraine s Y. Maletin et al. presented a comprehensive overview describing state of the art as well as future development trends in supercapacitors, as the fifth paper in this chapter. The authors establish key performance bars for supecapacitors upon meeting those, supercapacitors may start to compete with batteries. Also, this paper highlights so-called hybrid applications where supercapacitors complement operation of batteries and/or fuel cells. Optimization of supercapacitor performance through varying electrode thickness is contemplated in length. 

Chapter eight discusses the power and energy and transportation future which includes hydrogen and fuel cells. Related topics involve renewables and solar satellite power. The chapter concludes several possible future scenarios and trends in nuclear power. 

The major function of a bipolar plate, or simply called "plate," is to connect each cell electrically and to regulate the reactant gas (typically, hydrogen and air in a hydrogen fuel cell) or reactant liquid (typically, methanol in a DMFC) and liquid or gas coolant supply as well as reaction product removal in desired patterns. This plate must be at least electrically conductive and gas and/or liquid tightened. Considering these important functions and the larger fraction of volume, weight, and cost of the plate in a fuel cell, it is worthwhile to construct this chapter with emphasis on the current status and future trend in bipolar plate research and development, mainly for the plate materials and fabrication process. 

The last section (19.6) is focused on the commercial potential and perspectives of using metal ammines in connection with, for example, polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) as well as selective catalytic reduction (SCR)-DeNO c (NO c removal) in the transport sector, and it includes comments on the global availability and low cost of the carrier salts. This section also provides the authors perspectives on future trends and challenges in metal ammine research, along with links to the interested reader for further information on key articles, companies and websites. 

CTC leaders should evaluate the most appropriate role they can play in the fuel cell arena. Those colleges that determine they should be involved in this technology should plan a limited involvement for the near future, but prepare themselves to expand their programs quickly if there is rapid growth in the fuel cell industry. The Potential Impacting Factors section of this report lists a number of possible trends, events, or decisions that might significantly accelerate fuel cell adoption. 

The previous section highlighted the efforts in the area of catalysis carried out up to 1990. The aim was to show how different research ideas in this field originated and evolved in order to better understand the more recent developments and chart some possible future trends. Since 1990 there has been an explosion of research and development activity for all three types of fuel cells, amidst concerns regarding the use of fossil fuels from the perspectives of both climate change and nonrenewable resource depletion. 

Abstract Whereas much attention has been paid to the environmental aspects of the life cycle of fuel cell fuel production, emphasis is placed on fuel cell hardware and materials recovery, including component reuse, remanufacturing, materials recycling and energy recovery for fuel cell maintenance and retirement processes. Fuel cell hardware recycling is described and issues related to the recycling infrastructure and the compatibihty of fuel cell hardware and materials are discussed. The role of materials selection and recovery in the fuel cell hfe cycle is described. Future trends for fuel cells centered on voluntary and mandatory recovery and the movement of life cycle considerations from computational research laboratories to design complete the discussion. 

Abstract This review is intended to provide the recent status in the development of polymeric-electrolyte (proton-exchange) membranes for the improvement of fuel cell performance based primarily on the preceding chapters of this book. Special attention is paid to the modification of present membranes, recent novel strategies for preparation of membranes, conceptual design of new membrane materials, and also promising approaches to overcome issues that severely restrict commercialization. The critical role of the materials and membranes and also relevant infrastructure of electrode is addressed. The new possibihties to improve technologies for implementation, and future trends are briefly examined. 

As discussed above, there are two major issues on the hydrogen fuel side. If a FC vehicle propelled with liquid fuel is realized, that can be the main trend of a future vehicle because liquid fuel does not have such issues (Table 14.1). The solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is the only fuel cell that can be directly driven by liquid fuel other fuel cells need fuel processors that produce hydrogen from... 

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