International energy forecasts promise a bright future for hydrogen as an energy carrier. When produced sustainably, hydrogen offers a variety of advantages:
Hydrogen is:
The sustainability of hydrogen depends on the manner in which it is produced.
A fuel cell is a device that converts chemical potential energy (energy stored in molecular bonds) into electrical energy.
A PEM fuel cell has 4 components:
- The anode, the negative post of the fuel cell, has several jobs. It conducts the electrons that are freed from the hydrogen molecules so that they can be used in an external circuit. It has channels etched into it that disperse the hydrogen gas equally over the surface of the catalyst.
