Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently announced a breakthrough in fuel cell research — they became the first to develop a fuel cell that runs on a readily available liquid fuel source. In their case, the prototype fuel cell they
built runs on diesel fuel.
Fuel cell technology has always been one of those up and coming technologies that is supposed to transform how the world uses energy. The main drawback to current technologies is they tend to require exotic fuel sources, often using some sort of highly compressed hydrogen which has a number of drawbacks above and beyond the problems of creating a supply system.
Researchers Raymond J. Gorte and John M. Vohs earlier created the first fuel cell that ran on something other than hydrogen when they published a paper in Nature in March 2000 describing a fuel cell that ran on butane. Their newest research with diesel fuel moves the technology closer to being a viable energy alternative to existing combustion engines and batteries.
Gorte and Vohs envision that their technology might someday use natural gas to power a basement generator that would supply 5 kilowatt hours and use the excess heat the fuel cells produce to heat the home and provide hot water, all much more efficiently than current power generation schemes.
Source:
Much more bang for the buck possible from fuel cells. Unisci.Com, Press Release, September 7, 2001.