Fuel Cell Power

Ben Mannino

Summary:

Running a toy is a pleasurable experience until it is drained of power. The problem is that people need a way to power electrical and mechanical devices. Difficulties occur when batteries die or wall outlets are inaccessible during operation of the toy. They compound when money is spent to replace expensive batteries. The goal of this design project is to use a fuel cell to provide portable power to a small electric device. The main requirement for the fuel cell is that it must produce enough voltage to power the electric device. The toy also needs to have the ability to run on electrical power even if there is not an electrical outlet in close proximity while the car is in motion and cannot be over 1kg in mass. Finally, the device must be able to house the fuel needed to run the fuel cell.

Different options were considered to meet the requirements. They included the use of switches, electric motors, fuel housing, and mounting styles. When considering different fuel cells, main difference were the use commercial fuel cells, mini cells, or even building a fuel cell. When building a fuel cell, there are options of using different catalysts or gaskets. The fuel cell built for this design project used soft graphite convection single slice.

The soft graphite fuel cell was chosen because it is easy to manipulate the graphite, and the supplies needed to fabricate it were available. Also, this cell can be constructed with the use of very few power tools. This allowed the majority of the construction of the project to be completed away from a machine shop under the flexibility of the builder. The power output given off by two soft graphite single slice fuel cell were more than enough to power the electric clock used in this design. Under load, this particular fuel cell broke down distilled water into hydrogen and oxygen. This particular fuel cell is reversible. When current is run through it in the opposite direction, the fuel cell can create the H 2 and O 2 gas needed to power the cell. This meant that it could create its own fuel to be stored in tanks for later use.

The fuel cell would strip the proton from a dihydrogen molecule. This proton would be allowed to flow through the porous structure of the MEA membrane. The hydrogen electron would flow through a wire connected to a node on the other side of the fuel cell. Then the electron would combine with the proton to form hydrogen again. The reason that the hydrogen atom would be driven to split is because it would combine with an oxygen atom to form a water molecule. The flow of electrons through the wire creates a magnetic field that turns the electric motor. The fuel cell that was built followed these principals. It created a voltage source of 0.58 volts per fuel cell and 0.07 amps. Since two fuel cells were used in series there were over 1.16 volts and 0.08 watts of power supplied to electric device.