Page 9 - Fuel Cell Student Edition

A series circuit of Grove cells, called a stack, was
used to power telegraphs from 1840-1860.

While Mr. Grove’s fuel cell was functional, it
was not very efficient. In 1958, General Electric
chemists Thomas Grubb and Leonard Niedrach,
collaborated to build the first Proton Exchange
Membrane (PEM) fuel cell because batteries were
too heavy, hazardous, and weak to take into space
for NASA’s Gemini Project. [2] Rather than having
sulfuric acid as the electrolyte, the PEM fuel cell
used a platinum-coated solid membrane. This
resulted in a much larger surface area at which
the reaction could take place, increasing efficiency
dramatically.

Ten cells charged to a given mark on the tube with dilute
sulphuric acid…oxygen and hydrogen were arranged in circuit
with an interposed voltameter… and allowed to remain for
thirty-six hours. At the end of that time 2.1 cubic inches of
mixed gas were evolved in the voltameter; the liquid had risen
in each of the hydrogen tubes of the battery to the extent of
1.5 cubic inch, and in the oxygen tubes

0.7 inch, equaling altogether 2.2 cubic inches; there was
therefore 0.1 cubic inch of hydrogen absorbed in the battery
tubes than there was in the voltameter.

— William Grove,

1843 letter to the Philosophical Magazine and
Journal of Science

8 TOTAL REDOX™ – FUEL CELLS TOTAL REDOX™ – FUEL CELLS 9