Talk:Proton-exchange membrane fuel cell

Celtec

Is Celtec a legitimate replacement and improvement over Nafion or is it just the new hot thing some company is pushing that we'll never hear of again? If it's the latter, I think it should be removed from its place of prominence in the article. Mentioning it with other similar cutting-edge (experimental?) competitors for Nafion maybe, but it doesn't feel right how it is now... TastyCakes 21:47, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I work with PBI fuel cells in research (well, at least in mathematical models) and mentioning Celtec is undue advertising. Other companies, such as Celanese, work on that, and there is an EU programme on the same membrane. Since the part about Celtec was the only contribution by 209.101.47.162 on Wikipedia, I suspect this is some sort of advertisement. I'll try to make it a bit more commercially neutral. --Orzetto 10:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

PEM Fuel Cells

This article is somewhat outdated - some (if not most) of the problems mentioned in the article have been solved or circumvented. This article is almost a stub anyway - more information is available in abundance all over the Internet. For some reference to modern PEM fuel cells check out this Finnish manufacturer. --Khokkanen 7 July 2005 15:23 (UTC)

Really? I didn't realize all the basic problems mentioned in the article had been effectively and economically fixed. That must be why everyone is driving around in those PEM Fuel Cell cars these days.

Hmm... Perhaps I exaggerated a little. Then again, some of the problems have been solved: nano nickel replaces platinum. I also recall an article about a biological agent working as a catalyst instead of platinum (or was it with platinum?). It was produced by some sort of bacteria. For some reason I can't find the article now. Should have bookmarked it. Khokkanen 18:46, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

You'll note that this article makes no claim that nano-nickel is more effective than platinum, because it is not. You'll also note that the article doesn't say that nano-nickel is cheaper than platinum, only that it "might be" at some point in the future. There are cheaper alternatives to platinum in fuel cells - but as far as I know not performance-wise. However, fuel cells have been developed that use such small amounts of platinum (say a thousandth of what they were using in the 60's) that it may be that this is no longer a significant cost issue. TastyCakes 21:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Another one I didn't find in Wikipedia yet. Hydrocarbon membrane is claimed to be better to virtually all perfluorinated membranes. One could also think that this one could have it's own article - if there's enough information. Khokkanen 19:05, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I found the biological agent working as a catalyst instead of platinum. It is an enzyme produced by desulfovibrio bacteria. The enzyme is called hydrogenase. More info on subject (or something very near it) here. The article I read it from originally was in Tieteen Kuvalehti, published by Bonnier Publication International. ISSN 0109-2456. The magazine is in Finnish, but is published also in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Greece. Khokkanen 21:37, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, as my pet project for now, I'm starting to add more information and clean up this article, hopefully as of today. Any help/comments would be greatly appreciated. Dr. Eclectic ^Talk 18:47, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I think the others here make the point that there are a lot of chatter in this subject, but only limited practical progress. I think this article should focus on the basics, what it does, how it does it, applications and ongoing fundamental challenges. I was under the impression that methanol using PEMFCs went by a different name, I think maybe that part can be axed or included as a brief description of similarities (Perhaps on Carbon Monoxide poisoning of the catalysts) and a link to a more in depth article. TastyCakes 20:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the article is currently talking about a proposal to tweak the PEMFC to accept methanol, but still different from the DMFC. Thanks for the comment. I'm working on adding information such as components/function, design issues, history while refining the existing sections. Dr. Eclectic ^talk 21:03, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

News articles about ‘nano nickel’ are not quite the caliber of information that deserves to be in an encyclopedia. The ongoing research about fuel cells has a tremendous about of garbage, and a lot of really interesting stuff that is far to complicated to include here or just required too much background that is yet missing. This article is a stub, anyone trying to lean about fuel cells would be well advised to read something else.Jrkenti 20:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Fuel cell articles boilerplate

I've created a boilerplate of fuel cell related articles to give some sense of coherence of topic to the many fuel cell and hydrogen economy related articles. Its a better option than a large header which reads "This page is auxiliary to the fuel cells page. Please read that first." That has to be fixed soon by rewriting the introduction. The boilerplate code is {{FuelCellGroup}}. Dr. Eclectic ^talk 19:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Incorrect Article Name - PEMFC, not PEFC

By the way, I have never, ever seen PEM fuel cells referring to as simply "proton-exchange fuel cells" without the word membrane. Any search on Google will tell you that the proper name is either proton exchange membrane cell or polymer electrolye membrane fuel cell.

So how about it? Should we move the article to Proton exchange membrane fuel cell? Dr. Eclectic ^talk 02:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. TastyCakes 05:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The first sentence says, "Proton-exchange fuel cells, also known as Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells or Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (both "PEMFC")...". Doesn't this take care of the name problem?

Hmm, well take this as an analogy: Imagine an article that starts off with "General, also known as General Motors Corporation, ..." or "Inc., also known as Apple Computer Inc., ...". Its just that in each of the types the name actually describes what is unique about each type of cell. For example the names alkaline FC, direct methanol FC and molten carbonate FC specify exactly what sort of chemistry the FC utilizes . In the PEM cell the polymer electrolyte membrane is actually the distinguishing feature and this is reflected in the name (PEM, never PE). What do you think? Dr. Eclectic ^talk 12:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I would be fine as long as the old title ("Proton-exchange fuel cell") redirects to the new one.

So are you gonna go and move it then? Doesn't sound like anyone strongly objects.

Yea, I will soon enough. It needs to be put on the requests for move page, because I was an idiot and altered the target pages history :(. In general though, my contributions will be somewhat sporadic, due to my busy workload. Even now I'm working on 3 lab reports which are due tomorrow. :( Dr. Eclectic ^talk 03:14, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I've added the page to Wikipedia's Requested Moves page. Dr. Eclectic ^talk 19:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

So the name changed on November 7th. Thats one issue resolved. :) Dr. Eclectic ^talk 09:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, PEFC is also used (I prefer PEMFC). There is in general not much consensus on what the acronym actually means, since half researchers will say "proton-exchange membrane" and the other half "polymer-electrolyte (membrane)". Maybe this should be written somewhere.

Semi-reaction potentials

Hi, I removed the information that claimed that reaction (1)'s E⁰ is 0 and reaction (2)'s is 1.229 V. I did so because I find it very unlikely that reaction (1) is exactly zero-sum, considering we are stripping the only electron an hydrogen atom has. The 1.229 V figure is for the whole reaction at standard conditions.

Actually, they were correct. The most commonly used potential scale in electrochemistry, the standard hydrogen electrode potential scale, says that the reversible standard potential for reaction one is set to zero volts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.109.151.10 (talk) 02:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

poorly sourced material

Somani's work needs 3rd party sources, not just his papers. Ditto for AEG. DGG (talk) 19:06, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Efficiency as a function of temperature

I removed this from the article:

(this statement about higher efficiency is incorrect. Higher temperatures allow for higher efficiencies for heat engines, but fuel cells are not heat engines and are not limited by the Carnot Cycle. Lower temperature increases fuel cell efficiency. Higher temperature, if proper system integration is done, can, however, produce higher overall system efficiencies. The blanket statement about higher temperature leading to higher efficiency is incorrect for fuel cells.)

It sounds correct to me (although I'm no expert), but could do with a reference and then properly integrating into the article. TastyCakes (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this is becoming clearer now, with some reasoning behind the importances of temperature in the new section "Limitation of Operating Temperature" Richardcw (talk) 17:40, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I am no expert in the field but that point specifically bothers me. There are several references to higher temperatures leading to higher efficiencies in the article (though I don't remind them being sourced) but there is also a formula, our of nowhere which states the exact opposite. I would really would love to understand which cells are the most efficient, I would say the cooler are the more efficient, but the article seems to imply it's the opposite.Klinfran (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2021 (UTC)