Electro-Analytical Techniques in Fuel Cell Research and Development.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices, which convert chemical energy of the fuel to electrical energy and heat energy. In a combustion engine, fuel is mixed with air in appropriate stoichiometric ratios to initiate a combustion reaction that further creates work. In a combustion reaction, the gas species are not spatially separated, but in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), these combustion reactions are split into two half-cell reactions, namely, fuel oxidation and oxygen reduction, that occurs in two separate chambers called anode and cathode, respectively. If all of the chemical energy can be converted into electrical energy, then we start with the following transfer function: ΔG = Electrical work (1) where ΔG (Gibbs free energy) determines the maximum useful work that can be extracted from the system of interest. For a fuel cell reaction with hydrogen as fuel at temperature 25°C, the overall exothermic chemical reaction is given as 1$$ \Delta G = Electrical work $$ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]