Poly phenylenediamines coated 316l ss bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Abstract

The never quenching thirst for energy has always been driving the world to look for several possible ways to tap energy as it would be very difficult to think of a world without energy consumption. Fossil fuels have been the major source of energy throughout the world. Rampant consumption of fossil fuels has led to emission of green house gases resulting in eventual consequences such as global warming. This situation forced the world to look for alternate methods of tapping energy with zero or low emission of green house gases. Fuel cells are one among them. They have emerged as an alternate energy solution. Basically, a fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that has reactants (fuel and oxidant) supplied from an external source and it will operate continuously as long as reactants are fed from outside source. There are many advantages in the usage of fuel cells. They have high conversion efficiency (approx. 70%). They have only few mechanical components. Therefore, they operate quietly demanding only less maintenance and hence are ideal devices for residential areas. Atmospheric pollution is kept at zero or minimum level and hence they are eco-friendly. There is no need for large volumes of cooling water and they take little time to go into operation. Since fuel cells do not require conventional fuels such as oil or gas, dependency on oil producing countries does not arise and therefore it ensures considerable savings in the economy of a country. Keeping in mind the kind of electrolyte , catalyst, range of operating temperature and the fuel used, six classes of fuel cells have emerged viz., Alkaline Fuel Cell (AFC), Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC), Phosphoric Acid Fuel cell (PAFC), Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) and Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC). newline newline newline