Fuel cells are a promising future source of energy. The do not pollute the environment and are one of the very few REAL options for emmision-free mobility. A fuel cell is an electrochemical device which has the ability to turn the chemical energy of its hydrogen-based fuel into electricity. The only remaining by-product is water. Thus, one can call the fuel cell free of malicous emmissions.
Polymer electrolyte fuel cell research © by Argonne National Laboratory
Today, only very few cars are driven by fuel cells. Most of them are prototypes. However, fuel cells are a realistic option for future mobility, because they have a significant advantage over battery driven eletric vehicles. Other than those they can be refueled as quickly as traditional gasoline driven cars.
Whereas all of this sounds very promising, the major issue that keeps fuel cells from flooding the market is their high price. The cost are mostly driven by the expansive platinum that is used in the cells. 100 grams of platinum is usually built into a fuel cell setting its price into several thousands of USD. However, scientist are making significant progresses in developing new kinds of platiunum compounds that allow for a great increase in efficiency. This makes fuel cells possible that need drastically less platinum than current designs. It is estimated that cell designs are possible that only need about 10 grams of platinum.
Huge fuel cells built with these new kinds of platinum alloys might sell for less than two thousand USD. Smaller cells that are not supposed to power a car but a small electronic devices migth become cheap enough to replace batteries. This could establish the fuel cell as one of the major source for mobile energy in the near future.
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