This was the beginning of fuel cell technology. His theories, however, had many gaps in them and were therefore dismissed by the scientific world. Fuel cell technology was all but forgotten until 1893 when Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald expanded on Grove's work, clarifying many of the details that Groves was not able to explain. Almost 40 years later Francis Bacon created the first efficient hydrogen and oxygen fuel cell system. Fuel cell technology received the big jump it needed in the early 1950's when NASA started developing them for use in space programs. NASA needed lightweight energy generators for use on board space shuttles and fuel cells seemed like the perfect answer. Other sources of power, such as nuclear, steam, battery, and solar, were too dangerous, large, bulky to set up, expensive, and inefficient so NASA decided fuel cells were the answer. They contracted more than 200 different projects in the 1950's to create fuel cells that were efficient, safe, and reliable enough to take into space. Since then, fuel cell technology has taken off. There are already hundreds of hospital who rely on it for power as well as many automobile companies who are creating prototype vehicles run primarily on fuel cells. .
How fuel cells work.
As stated above fuel cell technology is an electrochemical process that takes advantage of reverse electrolysis. Hydrogen is often used as the fuel in fuel cells. Hydrogen and oxygen atoms are put back together (via a catalyst) to create an electrical charge and water. A fuel cell is made up of an anode and a cathode with an electrolyte separating the two. This is shown in Figure 1. Fuel, which in most cases is hydrogen, goes into the anode, and air, is channeled through the cathode. The atoms in the anode are electromagnetically attracted to the cathode and an electric current is created because the atom in the anode creates an electronic link between the anode and the cathode.
