Hydro Fuel

What is a fuel cell? A fuel cell is an electrical cell which can continuously be fed with a fuel so that the electrical power output is sustained indefinitely. The first fuel cell was developed in 1839 by a amateur scientist Sir William Grove. This type of fuel cell was called the "Gas Battery" but was abandon because of problems with corrosion of the electrodes and unreliable materials.

No more significant work was done on fuel cells again until 1930 when Francis Bacon a Chemical engineer began is work on fuel cells. It was around 1950 when Bacon developed the first practical fuel cell a alkaline version. He used nickle powered so that the gases could defuse Thur the electrodes to be contacted with aqueous electrolyte on the other side of the electrode. This increased contact between the electrodes giving more power.

The next advancement in fuel cells came from NASA in the !960's when they began working on the Apollo Spacecraft. Then again in the 1970's when they developed powerful alkaline fuel cells for NASA's space Shuttle Orbitor. These fuel cells provided electricity for Orbitor and also drinking water when the Shuttle was in flight.

Also in the 1960's General Electric made a huge breakthrough in cell fuel technology with the invention of the PEM fuel cell by Leonard Niedrach and Thomas Grubb. Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) was first developed to supply portable power for Navy Ships and Army Signal Corps. It also got NASA attention and was tried by NASA for its Apollo missions but failed in some of their Gemini flights.  This technology was rather expensive because of the large amount of platinum required and was eventualy abadon by GE but was take over by