How much electricty can a hydrogen fuel cell produce?

Question

How much electricty can a hydrogen fuel cell produce?

Answer 1

can continuously produce unlimited energy as long as there is fuel is available for them.

Answer 2

Not as much electricity as it takes to make the hydrogen.  Hydrogen doesn't exist as a stand-alone molecule on earth, which means it either has to be separated from fossil fuels or from water.  This causes an energy penalty of anywhere from 30-50%.

Answer 3

The rate the fuel cell can produce electricity depends entirely upon the size of the fuel cell. There is talk about producing very tiny fuel cells to power cell phones or computers. These obviously produce small amounts of electricity. Other fuel cells are designed to produce enough electricity to power a house.

A fuel cell is actually a sort of battery and like a battery, the amount of electricity that it can produce depends upon how big it is. The fuel cell is a little different than a battery because the fuel is stored in a separate tank and therefore a fuel cell can produce electricity as long as there is fuel in the tank.

Answer 4

quite a lot.

the problem is that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than the fuel cell produces. So although it makes you car more eco-friendly, there is still a factory burning coal somewhere to produce electricity to make the hydrogen. If you used solar power to make hydrogen, it would be better.

So although it produces a lot for your car, in the long run, the world is losing a greater amount of energy than it would if you used gas directly.( although the emissions are less)

It also needs refueling quite often to continue  producing enough energy to fuel your car.

Answer 5

Fuel cell

A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. It produces electricity from external supplies of fuel (on the anode side) and oxidant (on the cathode side). These react in the presence of an electrolyte. Generally, the reactants flow in and reaction products flow out while the electrolyte remains in the cell. Fuel cells can operate virtually continuously as long as the necessary flows are maintained.

Fuel cells differ from batteries in that they consume reactants, which must be replenished, while batteries store electrical energy chemically in a closed system. Additionally, while the electrodes within a battery react and change as a battery is charged or discharged, a fuel cell's electrodes are catalytic and relatively stable.

Many combinations of fuel and oxidant are possible. A hydrogen cell uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant. Other fuels include hydrocarbons and alcohols. Other oxidants include air, chlorine and chlorine dioxide.

Technology

In the archetypal example of a hydrogen/oxygen proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), which used to be called solid polymer electrolyte fuel (SPEFC) around 1970 and now is polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEFC or PEMFC, same as the short writing of proton exchange membrane) while the proton exchange mechanism was doubted, a proton-conducting polymer membrane, (the electrolyte), separates the anode and cathode sides.

On the anode side, hydrogen diffuses to the anode catalyst where it later dissociates into protons and electrons. The protons are conducted through the membrane to the cathode, but the electrons are forced to travel in an external circuit (supplying power) because the membrane is electrically insulating. On the cathode catalyst, oxygen molecules react with the electrons (which have traveled through the external circuit) and protons to form water. In this example, the only waste product is water vapor and/or liquid water.

In addition to pure hydrogen, there are hydrocarbon fuels for fuel cells, including diesel, methanol (see: direct-methanol fuel cells) and chemical hydrides. The waste products with these types of fuel are carbon dioxide and water.

The materials used in fuel cells differ by type. The electrode/bipolar plates are usually made of metal, nickel or carbon nanotubes, and are coated with a catalyst (like platinum, nano iron powders or palladium) for higher efficiency. Carbon paper separates them from the electrolyte. The electrolyte could be ceramic or a membrane.

A typical fuel cell produces about 0.86 volt. To create enough voltage, the cells are layered and combined in series and parallel circuits to form a fuel cell stack. The number of cells used is usually greater than 45 but varies with design.