Electrochemical cells – «useful dependence» or «a temporary solution»?

Energy is an essential part of all living organisms on our planet. We eat, move, grow, and do all actions using it. But nowadays it is used not only in human’s or animals’ bodies but also in the power stations, factories and the most important – in the electricity. With the development of new technologies we discovered a new way of energy production –the use of electrochemical cells.

Electrochemical cells use the principle in which the electrons go through the electrolyte from the anode to cathode, releasing heat. Today its usage is so wide, so that even smartphones, without which we cannot live, use the chemical cells to recharge. The last 20 years show a big dependence on such technologies. And it seems to be beneficial to use them, but is that true?

The chemical cell has a lot of benefits, therefore the expanded demand for them created an opportunity for their development. For instance, the widespread usage of mobile phones enabled “Mobion” to produce micro power pack that is less than 40 cc in size. The first manufacturability of MTI Mobion created significant import within the high cost to military and electronics’ production. This demand for technology impacted in positive way creating powerful, manufactorable and affordable fuel cells for the big companies as Gillette and Duracell. Another great dependence on chemical cells can be seen in automobile and rocket production. The Toyota Mirai, which literally means the future in Japanese, created the power control unit, which decides when to store energy from the battery or draw energy from electricity. The battery of this miracle is arranged in three dimensional lattice, which allows the usage of the higher flow of oxygen and creating the electricity in the surface of the battery. This, in turn, means the possibility of using not only eco-friendly, but economically efficient cars. Furthermore, the ambitious aims of colonizing space also requires sufficient energy source; the one which Space Launch System needs. In this case, the ability to store and reuse energy which chemical cells allow will be the option. So, the development of chemical cells created an opportunity to get affordable, efficient packaged, small-highly developed technology, which helps to overcome the dependence on fossil fuels and decreases the amount of pollution.

There are certain qualities of electrochemical cell that make it more advantageous in comparison with other types of energy sources. This includes smaller amount of carbon dioxide emissions, practically no nitrogen oxides emissions and zero particulates produced by the cell. However, there are still factors that cease the process of even wider usage of electrochemical cells (and similar kind). One of the fundamental problems concerning fuel cells is related to the low reaction rates for redox reaction, oxygen reduction in particular, which in turn leads to low levels of current and power. Another issue is caused by the low availability of hydrogen, which is relatively abundant on Earth, but needs to be transformed to its pure form in order to be used to generate energy in fuel cell. Newer, less expensive ways of increasing redox rates and converting hydrogen to pure form are necessary for bringing larger popularity to fuel cell. Finding solution for these problems will possibly accelerate the ariset of new era of electrochemical cells replacing carbon fueled sources.

People’s dependence on power from electrochemical cells has its both advantages and disadvantages. For the first ones they are less CO2 emissions, using in automobile and rocket production, and availability. And the main disadvantage is a H2O release. And, considering these two sides, there is no doubt that this dependence will increase day by day. In this case, we have only one interesting question : Can the electrochemical cells replace the fossil fuels in the future?