{"id":19009,"date":"2024-01-06T03:08:38","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T21:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=19009"},"modified":"2025-04-05T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T09:11:00","slug":"fuel-cell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/fuel-cell\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Fuel Cell?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Fuel Cell<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A fuel cell is a device that\u00a0generates electricity by a chemical reaction.<\/li>\n<li>Fuel cells can be used in a\u00a0wide range of applications, providing\u00a0power for applications across multiple sectors, including transportation, industrial\/commercial\/residential buildings, and\u00a0long-term energy storage for the grid in reversible systems.<\/li>\n<li>Working:\n<ul>\n<li>A fuel cell\u00a0consists of two electrodes\u2014a negative electrode (or\u00a0anode)\u00a0and a positive electrode (or\u00a0cathode).<\/li>\n<li>Both electrodes must be immersed in and\u00a0separated by an electrolyte, which may be a liquid or a solid but must, in either case,\u00a0conduct ions between the electrodes in order to complete the chemistry of the system.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>A fuel, such as hydrogen, is supplied to the anode,\u00a0where it is oxidized,\u00a0producing hydrogen ions and electrons.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>An oxidizer, such as oxygen, is\u00a0supplied to the cathode, where the\u00a0hydrogen ions from the anode absorb electrons from the latter and\u00a0react with the oxygen to produce water.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0difference between\u00a0the respective energy levels\u00a0at the electrodes\u00a0(electromotive force)\u00a0is the voltage per unit cell.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0amount of electric current available to the external circuit\u00a0depends on the chemical activity and amount of the\u00a0substances supplied as fuel.<\/li>\n<li>A\u00a0single fuel cell generates a tiny amount of direct-current\u00a0(DC) electricity. In practice,\u00a0many fuel cells are usually assembled into a stack.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Advantages of Fuel Cells:\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel cells have\u00a0lower or zero emissions compared to combustion engines. Hydrogen fuel cells\u00a0emit only water, addressing critical climate challenges as there are\u00a0no carbon dioxide emissions.<\/li>\n<li>There are also\u00a0no air pollutants that create smog and cause health problems during the operation of a fuel cell.<\/li>\n<li>They are\u00a0quiet during operation as they have few moving parts.<\/li>\n<li>They can\u00a0operate at higher efficiencies than combustion engines.<\/li>\n<li>A fuel cell resembles a battery in many respects, but it can\u00a0supply electrical energy over a much longer period of time.\n<ul>\n<li>This is\u00a0because a fuel cell is continuously supplied with fuel and air (or oxygen) from an external source, whereas a battery contains only a limited amount of fuel material and oxidant that are depleted with use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are electrodes?<\/h3>\n<p>An electrode is a conductor that is used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit. Electrodes are commonly used in electrochemical cells (see Figure 1), semiconductors like diodes, and in medical devices. The electrode is the place where electron transfer occurs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/isro-tests-futurist-fuel-cell-system-that-could-power-space-station\/articleshow\/106562024.cms?from=mdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Isro tests futurist fuel cell system that could power space station\u00a0<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fuel cell is a device that generates electricity by a chemical reaction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}