Sir William Grove

Grove, Sir William Robert (1811-1896) was a British scientist who in 1839 discovered the principle on which fuel cells are based. His cell, which was composed of two Pt electrodes both half immersed in dilute H2SO4, one electrode fed with O2 and the other with H2, was not a practical method for energy production. 

A fuel cell is simply a device with two electrodes and an electrolyte for extracting power from the oxidation of a fuel without combustion, converting the power released directly into electricity. The fuel is usually hydrogen. The principle of a fuel cell was first demonstrated by Sir William Grove in London in 1839 with sulphuric acid and platinum gauze as an electrocatalyst, and thereafter there were very occasional attempts to develop the principle, not all of which were based on sound scientific principles , as one commentator put it. 

The problem was solved by Francis Bacon, a British scientist and engineer, who developed an idea proposed by Sir William Grove in 18.39. A fuel cell generates electricity directly from a chemical reaction, as in a battery, but uses reactants that are supplied continuously, as in an engine. A fuel cell that runs on hydrogen and oxygen is currently installed on the space shuttle (see Fig. L.l). An advantage of this fuel cell is that the only product of the cell reaction, water, can be used for life support. 

Appleby, A. J. From Sir William Grove to today Fuel cells and the future. Journal of Power Sources 1990 29 3-11. 

The basic principles were stated more than 100 years ago by Sir William Grove in 1839 ( 2) but the first real application was made in the American space flights of Gemini and the Apollo moon trips. After more than a decade of intense activity in fuel cell R and D, the commercial availability of these units is now in sight... 

Ever since Volta s first battery in 1800, scientists have been trying to develop bigger and better electrochemical cells. Sir William Robert Grove (1811-96), a lawyer from Wales who had a penchant for experimental science, discovered an interesting cell in 1838. He placed one end of a... 

Welsh lawyer Sir William Robert Grove (1811-96) invents a hydrogen fuel cell. 

One area of research that will advance in years to come is the study of fuel cells. The first fuel cell was actually produced in 1839 by Sir William Grove (1811-1896). A... 

Such cells are called fuel cells and were discovered as long ago as 1839 by Sir William Grove, who noticed that, when water had been electrolyzed and the hydrogen and oxygen products were left in contact with the electrodes, the cell could run backward, producing a current in an external circuit. Yet it is only relatively recently that fuel cells have attracted major industrial interest. For reasons that will emerge later, the reaction usually chosen is that discovered by Grove ... 

Many fuel cell systems have been developed since the first discovery of Sir William Grove. Fuel cell systems can produce electricity from several fuels (hydrogen, natural gas, alcohols, etc.) for many applications stationary power plants, power train sources, APU, and electronic portable devices, with nearly the same energy efficiency (around 40% in electric energy), irrespective of their size (from tens of MW for power plants to a few W for portable electronics). 

Fuel cells did not boom again for more than 50 years, although there was occasional activity in Europe. Then another person appeared on the scene, a man in the same vein as Sir William Grove, but much, much more persistent. This was Francis Thomas Bacon, and since it was he who stood directly behind NASA s use of fuel cells in the space flights, it can truly be said that more than any other individual, it was... 

Fuel cells have had an abnormally long development time. The year 1839 was the date of Sir William Grove s discovery. According to a report prepared by the National Science Foundation, the average time for bringing a scientific concept from its first published expression to commercialization is 75 years. Fuel cells have taken more than twice as long. 

The history of fuel cells is lengthy. The first fuel cell, indeed, was produced in 1839 by a British judge, Sir William Grove. It was not until 1959 that Tom Bacon, a member of the family of Francis T. Bacon (who first enunciated the scientific method of experimentation and communication) made practical a 5-kW fuel cell. Tom Bacon,... 

British scientist Sir William Grove—later called the Father of the Fuel Cell —creates a gas battery, which is basically a fuel cell. 

---