Where to Start with Electrochemistry Research for PEM Fuel Cells?

[P-man]

I would like to do some research on electrochemistry, seeing as I'm doing a project on PEM Fuel Cells, but where should I start? Do you know any good books? Websites? Contacts?

Thanks, Pierre.

 

[Gokul43201]

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/echemcon.html#c1

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch20/electroframe.html

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch20/electroframe.html

 

[P-man]

Thanks a lot.

 

[Astronuc]

Some other useful places besides the great sites Gokul mentioned.

http://www.fctec.com/fctec_types_pem.asp

http://www.fctec.com/fctec_basics.asp

http://www.bellona.no/en/energy/hydrogen/report_6-2002/22984.html

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/EducationCentre/EducationCentreExternal/EduCentreDisplay/0,1741,FCInfoTypes,00.html

http://www.fuelcell.com/index.asp (more of commercial site)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Electrochemistry (probably not as good as hyperphysics)

this might be useful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_standard_electrode_potentials

http://www.azonano.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1166

http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/

 

[P-man]

Thanks a lot for the great sites. From what I can gather now, an electrochemical reaction is a chemical reaction that takes place when one of the reactants is forced to abandon one or more electrons in the reaction. In a fuel cell, the hydrogen reacts with the catalyst (platinum, or nickel if the hydrogen is pure (from electrolysis)) and the hydrogen is forced to abandon its electrons in order to get to the oxygen on the other side of the membrane. Does there always have to be a catalyst in an electrochemical reaction? For it to be an electrochemical reaction, the reaction must produce electricity, in one way or another, if I am not mistaken?

 

[Gokul43201]

Thanks a lot for the great sites. From what I can gather now, an electrochemical reaction is a chemical reaction that takes place when one of the reactants is forced to abandon one or more electrons in the reaction.

This is true of almost any reaction, not just electrochemical reactions.

In a fuel cell, the hydrogen reacts with the catalyst (platinum, or nickel if the hydrogen is pure (from electrolysis)) and the hydrogen is forced to abandon its electrons in order to get to the oxygen on the other side of the membrane. Does there always have to be a catalyst in an electrochemical reaction?

No, not at all.

For it to be an electrochemical reaction, the reaction must produce electricity, in one way or another, if I am not mistaken?

Either that, or it must be caused by an applied electric potential. The first is a galvanic reaction, the second is an electrolytic reaction.

 

[Astronuc]

In a fuel cell, the hydrogen reacts with the catalyst (platinum, or nickel if the hydrogen is pure (from electrolysis)) and the hydrogen is forced to abandon its electrons in order to get to the oxygen on the other side of the membrane.

As Gokul pointed out, this is a special type of electrochemical reaction. There are others.

Corrosion is essentially an electrochemical reaction, and a catalyst is not needed.

Look at the Galvanic Cells - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_cell, and at hyperphysics though the links Gokul provided - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/electrochem.html#c1 and http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/redoxcon.html#c1.

Reduction and Oxidation are chemical and electrochemical concepts.

 

[P-man]

Thanks guys. I appreciate your help. Now I understand what happens in the fuel cell better. But one more thing, today I was experimenting with electrochemistry, from what I knew, so I did this: I put some sulphuric acid in one test tube and some other base liquid I forget... and I put a battery and connected the two test tubes through my little circuit. I felt an electric shock near the battery but nothing seemed to happen in the test tubes, though the wire go really hot. Can you explaine this?

 

[Gokul43201]

1. You need to learn a lot more. Make sure you can solve textbook (say Atkins, Phys Chem) problems on Electrochemistry before playing around with stuff. You can do dangerous things if you do not completely understand the concepts.

2. Without a good description/picture of your circuit, it's hard to say what happened. Looks to me like you just ended up shorting the terminals of the battery. This is not a good thing. If you have a voltmeter/multimeter, check the open circuit voltage across the battery terminals and make sure the battery is still good. If the voltage measured is less than the rated voltage, you probably fried your battery.

 

[P-man]

That doesn't sound to great.
Anyways, are there any textbooks I can find online?