By Christopher Moore
Edmund Scientific recently asked me to review some products for them, so the first item I picked was one I’ve had my eye on for years: a hydrogen fuel cell model car. Recently I wrote an article about advances in fuel cell catalyst technology, so fuel cells are an interest of mine that may one day find a way into my research.
The model car Edmunds sent me is manufactured by Heliocentris. It is the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Model Car Demo kit and comes with a solar module, a reversible proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell (operates as both an electrolyzer and a fuel cell), and a car chassis with electric motor. Its operation is simple: you fill the fuel-cell with water, plug it into the solar panel, and the electricity generated by the panel electrolyzes the water, forming hydrogen and oxygen gas. Once you’ve made enough gas, you plug the fuel-cell into the car. The hydrogen and oxygen recombine producing a current that powers the electric motor making the car move.
I’ve had a lot of fun with this item, and I have lots of plans for it. Specifically, I’m using it as a demo during an upcoming talk on fuel-cell catalysts, I’m working with a student at a local high school on a Virginia Junior Academy of Science project involving PEM fuel cells, and I’m developing a presentation on basic fuel cell technology and energy for a group of fifth graders at an area elementary school. Needless to say, I find this toy useful and incredibly fun. It runs on water! Sort of. (You do need a little solar energy to make hydrogen gas, and technically the car runs on hydrogen. But whatever.)
A short video demonstrating the operation of the car is provided after the jump along with a more detailed review and purchasing information.
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By Christopher Moore
Fuel cell devices directly convert chemical energy into electricity by electrochemical reactions, and have received recent interest due to their lack of moving parts and relatively clean operation. Various types of fuel cells are currently discussed in the scientific literature, though polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) show characteristics that would make them suitable for automobile engines that produce zero emissions. (For a discussion on fuel cells in general, see this article.)
Several problems currently exist that limit the commercial viability of PEFCs, the largest being the cost of catalyst material. Though Pt has historically been the optimum cathode electrocatalyst for fuel cells, [1] the use of expensive Pt and Pt-based catalysts in fuel-cell electrodes makes their cost prohibitive. Since Pt requirements scale with fuel-cell size, large-scale fuel-cell costs can not be reduced through efficient production and economies of scale. If the transition to a hydrogen economy is to be realized, reductions in fuel cell costs are necessary. Otherwise the familiar rallying cry “no blood for oil” may be replaced by “no blood for platinum”. Recent studies have been conducted on means to reduce the amount of platinum necessary for successful catalysis, as well as studies to eliminate platinum from the process altogether. Specifically, in this article I examine studies of platinum monolayers, palladium alloys, and cobolt-polypyrrole composite catalysts.
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By Christopher Moore
John Mather of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and George Smoot of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California were awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics for depicting the universe as it was 380,000 years after its birth in the Big Bang.
Mather and Smoot were the architects of NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured remnants of light from the Big Bang. The results of these measurements provide compelling evidence in favor of Big Bang Theory, and give a glimpse of what the universe looked like shortly after its inception.
More from MSNBC.com:
The measurements also revealed tiny ripples in the light’s intensity, representing “lumps” no more than 0.001 percent richer in matter than the space around them. From those humble origins arose massive galaxies and galactic superclusters hundreds of millions of light-years across.
Although there is still debate about what caused these ripples, Mather’s and Smoot’s data confirm that the origin of everything we know, including ourselves, is founded on the slightest irregularities in the primordial radiation.
Why where they awarded the prize? Our universe’s (and our own) origins are important, but more important is that for decades cosmologists have speculated as to the origin and growth of the universe with little to no experimental support. Mather and Smoot injected experimental data into the discussion, confirming a hotly contested theory and expanding our knowledge of the make-up of the universe. For this they will split $1.4 million dollars, receive a gold medal and a diploma, and be able to add one hell of a line to their resumes.
