Project-ing!

It's over a month now. I couldn't post a blog. I started writing blogs thinking I will write something daily and wanted to do it like BigB! (To check out his blogs click here) I too started writing blogs following same numbering style. The zeal and passion with which he works at age of 67 is impressive. He has crossed 600 days of blogging without missing a single day! Whereas, I couldn't keep the continuity, for more than five days! Laziness, I regret it.

One of the most common questions people ask me is what's my project on … what am I upto…doing M.S through research. So let me describe it here, in most laymen terms as possible.

As you know hydrogen gas reacts with oxygen, producing water and releasing huge amount of energy. When this is carried out in a cell, electricity is produced which can be used to power stationary and portable appliances. This is called fuel cell.

H2 gas + O2 gas => H2O + electricity

What is the advantage? It is a continuous battery without any pollution!

Well things are definitely not as easy as it seems. Discovered more than 60 yrs before, it still remains as one of the emerging technologies! One of the important problem is the need to use Platinum as catalyst which is a metal costlier than Gold! Here comes nanotechnology! Using the concepts of nanotechnology Pt can be finely divided so that one gram of Pt can produce surface area as high as 500m²! Area of a football ground in a small cell! So more area for the reaction to occur, better the efficiency, I will be working on these aspects. Also hydrogen being an explosive, unsafe gas, many alternatives has been developed. One of them currently being developed is using methanol and ethanol as fuel. These reactions are very slow but research is going on these aspect also. I will be working on some small aspects on these types of cells.


I am embedding small videos on principles of fuel cells. Really interesting ones. Go through them. See how they charge the cell with the liquid!



Toshiba introduced a mobile phone which works on the same principle. A Japanese is explaining t fundas... Plz go over it....




Researchers have tried using transport vehicles using fuel cells, Check this one too...