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ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT

Technology and Environment

By :
WAHYU ADY
M3116081

PURNOMO

3th DIPLOMA INFORMATICS ENGINEERING STUDY PROGRAM


FACULTY OF MATHEMATIC AND NATURAL SCIENCE
UNIVERSITAS SEBELAS MARET
2016

HYDROGEN FUEL CELL


Hydrogen is a famous chemical molekul in this era. Many research said that
hydrogen was a new generation of energy. And the end, this research is success. The result is
Fuel Cell. This technology was inspirate from battery. Where there is a reaction between the
cathode and anode.
Hydrogen is a chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. With just
one proton and one electron, it is the most common element, making up 75% of the mass of
the entire universe. Water is familiar form hydrogen in our life. Why must Hydrogen ?
Hydrogen is very clean and very safe with our earth. It is not like a gas, hydrogen is not make
pollution, why ? Because Hydrogen is a natural molekul in our earth. We can put example
with daily life. We can drink water but we cant drink gasoline ? So we can conclude that
hydrogen is non toxic. And more, hydrogen just make water vapor when hydrogen processed
in solar cell. Not like a fuel gas which make many black smoke. Hydrogen is every where.
Water is big source hydrogen in earth. We can get water in every where like a river, sea, and
many more. So hydrogen will more cheap then fuel gas.
Hydrogen cant work without fuel cell. What is fuel cell ? Fuel cell is a converter tool
to make electricity from hydrogen. Fuel cells operates much like a battery, except they dont
require electrical recharging. A battery stores all of its chemicals inside and coverts the
chemicals into electricity. Once those chemicals run out, the battery dies. A fuel cell, on the
other had, receives the chemicals it uses from the outside; therefore, it wont run out. Fuel
cells can generate power almost indefinitely, as long as they have fuel to use.
How the fuel cell work ? Hydrogen gas from the tank (shown here as big brown
blobs) feeds down a pipe to the positive terminal. Hydrogen is flammable and explosive, so
the tank has to be extremely strong. Then oxygen from the air (big turquoise blobs) comes
down a second pipe to the negative terminal. Then the positive terminal (red) is made
of platinum, a precious metal catalyst designed to speed up the chemistry that happens in the
fuel cell. When atoms of hydrogen gas reach the catalyst, they split up into hydrogen ions
(protons) and electrons (small black blobs). In case you're confused: hydrogen ions are
simply hydrogen atoms with their electrons removed. Since they have only one proton and
one electron to start with, a hydrogen ion is the same thing as a proton. And then the protons,
being positively charged, are attracted to the negative terminal (blue) and travel through the
electrolyte (yellow) towards it. The electrolyte is a thin membrane made of a special polymer
(plastic) film and only the protons can pass through it.

In a fact, the step of hydrogen fuel cell is same with battery, but the difference is the
battery must always recharge when the energy is low, while fuel cell just fill it up with the
many hydrogen form. This is very simple and we never bring many cable every where.
But this techonoly still have disadvantages. The advantages are :
1. Fossil fuels are still needed. In order to separate the atoms of the hydrogen and
oxygen and actually generate hydrogen fuel, fossil fuels are needed. This
completely defeats the purpose of an alternative energy source. If we ran out of
fossil fuels we would no longer be able to produce hydrogen energy.
2. Costly to produce. One of the biggest pitfalls of hydrogen fuel cells is the simple
fact that it is very expensive to produce. As of now, the energy is not efficient
enough to produce hydrogen energy in a cost effective way.
3. Flammable! While it may not be toxic, it sure is flammable. The source of the
hazard comes from the hydrogen itself, which is very prone to catching on fire, or
even exploding. This would add unnecessarily and new risks into society.
4. Much work to be done. The use of fuel cells is very new, and quite a bit of
advancement and research still needs to be done before it can be used on a wide
scale basis. The plausibility of its use isnt even fully known yet, and many
people believe it is just a fairy tale.
5. Cells cant hold much. The actual cells that the hydrogen energy is stored in can
store only a small amount of power. This makes the process of maintaining
reliable power sources with the use of hydrogen fuel cells very unlikely.

CONCLUSION
From this article, we know that hydrogen fuel cell is a new technology and then this is
big step to the new technology era in our life. If this technology is successfully to developed,
this technology have many advantages for our life. We can reduce the level of pollution in our
earth. And more, we can replace fossil fuels wich is natural resource that can not regenerate
with hydrogen fuel which is regenerate natural resource. The next advantages is cheap,
hydrogen can we found in everywhere as water and we can take them with free cost. But, as
we know that hydrogen fuel technology still have disadvantages. The disadvantages are fossil
fuels are still needed, costly to produce, flammable, much work to be done, cells cant hold
much. So, we must to develop and make research this technology much more.

Source and reference :

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fcv_PEM.shtml
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/fuelcells.html
http://www.chfca.ca/education-centre/what-is-a-fuel-cell/
http://thenextgalaxy.com/10-disadvantages-and-advantages-of-hydrogen-fuel-cells/
http://www.chfca.ca/education-centre/what-is-hydrogen/
http://oto.detik.com/read/2014/08/13/114821/2660818/1207/penasaran-bagaimana-carakerja-mobil-hidrogen

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