Benefits Of Fuel cells
Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that combine oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity . Water and heat are produced as by-products in this reaction. The fuel cells continue to generate power till the time fuel is supplied to them. As fuel is converted to energy using an electrochemical process and no combustion is involved, the process is extremely clean, quiet and efficient. The amount of energy produced is twice or thrice the amount produced during the burning of fuel. Apart from this, there are many other benefits of employing fuel cells for producing energy. Some of these benefits include:
Highly efficient.
Fuel cells are energy conversion devices that convert stored energy in usable form such as heat and electricity. Although their working is similar to internal combustion engines and generators, fuels cells are extremely efficient as compared to them. Fuel cells use electrochemical reaction for extracting energy as heat and electricity, which can be used at the point of production. Fuel cells produce energy using fuel in a single step and thus have high conversion efficiencies.
Low maintenance.
Pumps, compressors and blowers are the only movable parts inside the fuel cells. All these are involved with heat, water, and air management. As compared to generators and internal combustion engines, these move less and thus their maintenance requirement is quite low. Oil needs to be changed after a very long period of time.
High reliability.
Mechanics need to make fewer site visits, thus reducing operating costs. Apart from, these fuel cells can be supervised remotely and any trouble in its operatin can be dealt with quickly.
Low Emissions.
PEM fuel cells that make use of hydrogen just emit water at the place of use. Even with the use of hydrocarbon fuels, these cells emit fewer emissions as compared to other combustion engines and generators. This is because fuel calls have higher efficiency and require less fuel for producing the same amount of energy. Secondly, as no combustion reaction takes place, there are no sulphur or nitrogen emissions.
Little noise pollution.
In fuel cells, energy is produced as a result of an electrochemical reaction.There are very few movements of internal parts involved in the energy production process. Thus, there is very low noise produced during its working, causing no noise pollution.
Fuel Flexibility.
There are many different kinds of fuel cells operating on a variety of fuels. Phosphoric Acid, PEM, and Alkaline fuel cells work on pure hydrogen. Methanol Fuel Cells need Solid Oxide and methanol & Molten Carbonate fuel cells operate on a variety of hydrocarbons like natural gas, methane, propane, etc. This reduces the dependence of any single fuel for using fuel cells.
Reduced reliability on petroleum fuels.
The use of fuel cells reduces our reliability on other petroleum fuel like diesel, kerosene, petrol and gasoline for producing energy.
There are so many benefits of using fuel cells for producing energy that fuel cells have become the most preferred choice of users throughout the world.