Grove’s gaseous voltaic battery
A down-to-earth tale of fuel cells
I have recently been gripped by a BBC podcast made by Andrew Luck-Baker and Kevin Fong called 13 Minutes to the Moon. The second series dissects the mission of Apollo 13, which nearly ended in catastrophe after a pressurised oxygen tank exploded. The three fuel cells, fed with hydrogen and oxygen, were instantly made useless. Not only was there no power to run the on-board computer and instruments, but the astronauts would be without water needed for drinking and to rehydrate their freeze-dried meals.
The podcast reminded me that, in spite of endless hype, there have been few truly successful examples of fuel cells since their discovery by Welshman William Grove in 1839.