Cleantech Investor

First published in Cleantech magazine Issue 4 2011. Copyright Cleantech Investor Ltd. 

by Denis Gross

2011 marks the bicentenary since the birth of Sir William Grove, who developed the first fuel cell in 1839, at the age of 28. A would-be lawyer, ill-health prevented Grove from practicing law and he turned to science instead. His experiments on electrolysis — the use of electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen — led to the first mention of a device that would later be termed the “fuel cell.” 

Grove believed that if it was possible to split water into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity, then the reverse of the electrolysis process — to generate electricity from the reaction of oxygen with hydrogen — should also be possible. To test this theory, he enclosed two platinum strips in separate sealed bottles, one bottle containing hydrogen and the other containing oxygen. When these containers were immersed in dilute sulphuric acid, a current began to flow between the two electrodes and water was formed in the gas bottles. To increase the voltage produced, Grove linked several of these devices in series and produced what he referred to as a “gas battery”, also known as Grove’s Battery.

While serving as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and in the course of the BAAS 1848 meeting in Swansea, Grove was amongst the party to see the botanist and pioneer photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn’s experiment with a boat powered by an electric motor. Although incidental, it forges a link between William Grove, fuel cells and electric vehicles – a connection which has only recently emerged.

Since the early days, the challenges of the 21st century – fuel security, climate change and environmental pressures – have opened up window of opportunity for electric vehicles in general, and for fuel cells. The hydrogen highway, if successfully rolled out, will create a massive demand for fuel cells in transport. Hydrogen fuel cells have already seen applications in a number of vehicle types – cars, vans, buses, forklifts, bikes, scooters, submarines, ferries, electric boats and aircraft.

It is interesting to speculate how transport might have evolved very differently from the way it did. At the time the car market emerged in the 1890s, electrical technology was relatively advanced following the growth of electric trams, trolley-cars and railways throughout Europe and North America, with motors and controllers benefitting from a decade of use and refinement. In terms of self-propelled cars (rather than vehicles that derived the source of power externally through conducting rails or overhead wires), the lead acid battery was improving rapidly in reliability and durability – and this rate of improvement set to accelerate in the early years of the 20th century.

Edison’s reported declaration in 1896 that the “electric car is dead” was premature. Electric cars vied with steam cars, with around 40% market share each, until 1912. That year that marked the peak of electric car sales before the internal combustion engine gained dominance.

Meanwhile, several trials of battery-powered trams/streetcars in the mid-1890s were successful to the extent that the vehicles worked well. However, the stop-start nature of their operation degraded battery life, resulting in significantly higher operating costs than their externally-powered peers. Although these factors would not apply to smaller private cars, the energy-to-weight ratio of storage batteries was not improving fast enough to provide high speed and long range operation. Thus at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, expectations were that the automobile industry would see growth in both internal combustion and electric vehicles, each addressing different markets. It was suggested in 1913 that “a man having $4500 to invest in pleasure cars should buy a $3000 electric for city and suburban use and a $1500 gasoline car for long-distance touring”.

The rest is history – a century of fossil-fuel powered transportation with little room for electric vehicles, fuelled by either a battery or fuel cell! Today, the rapid emergence of biofuel, battery and fuel cell vehicles of all types looks set to reverse this trend. The face of transport will look very different in another century. Whether Grove’s invention, the fuel cell, will dominate 300 years after his birth is anyone’s guess!