Continuing the discussion about PLUG fuel cells versus others, and the future of PLUGs fuel choice of H2......
And yet Methanol is similar to formic acid in that H2/formic acid example and yet PLUG's fuel cell supplier Ballard is building and using their methanol fuel cells on European buses instead of hydrogen. Why is that?
Formic acid has a similar density to methanol on a volume and weight basis, versus H2. While methanol is a better fuel than formic acid, methanol has other problems like needing to be reformed into H2 first, and in direct feed fuel cells it has low efficiency issues....
"Similar to methanol, formic acid is a small organic molecule fed directly into the fuel cell, removing the need for complicated catalytic reforming. Storage of formic acid is much easier and safer than that of hydrogen because it does not need to be done at high pressures and (or) low temperatures, as formic acid is a liquid at standard temperature and pressure. Formic acid does not cross over the polymer membrane, so its efficiency can be higher than that of methanol."
Some history:
"During previous investigations, researchers dismissed formic acid as a practical fuel because of the high overpotential shown by experiments: this meant the reaction appeared to be too difficult to be practical. However, in 2005- 2006, other researchers (in particular Richard Masel's group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) found that the reason for the low performance was the usage of platinum as a catalyst, as it is common in most other types of fuel cells: using palladium instead, they claim to have obtained better performance than equivalent direct methanol fuel cells.[1] As of April 2006, Tekion[2] held the exclusive license to formic-acid fuel cell technology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and with an investment from Motorola,[3] was partnering with BASF to design and manufacture power packs by late 2000"
"Direct-formic acid fuel cells are a subcategory of proton exchange membrane fuel cells where, the fuel, formic acid, is not reformed, but fed directly to the fuel cell.
Their applications include small, portable electronics such as phones and laptop computers."
Note that one I have been discussing has eliminated the membrane, so it is now its own subcategory, yet to be listed on wikipedia...
"Reformed Methanol Fuel Cell or Indirect Methanol Fuel Cell systems are a subcategory of proton-exchange fuel cells where, the fuel, methanol (CH3OH), is reformed, before being fed into the fuel cell. rmfc systems offer advantages over direct methanol fuel cell systems including higher efficiency, smaller cell stacks, no water management, better operation at low temperatures, and storage at sub-zero temperatures because methanol is a liquid from -97.0 °C to 64.7 °C (-142.6 °F to 148.5 °F). The tradeoff is that Rmfc systems operate at hotter temperatures and therefore need more advanced heat management and insulation. The waste products with these types of fuel cells are carbon dioxide and water.
Methanol is used as a fuel because it is naturally hydrogen dense (a hydrogen carrier) and can be steam reformed into hydrogen at low temperatures compared to other hydrocarbon fuels. Additionally, methanol is naturally occurring, biodegradable, and energy dense."
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