The History of Fuel Cells

The fuel cells that the Apollo astronauts rode will soon be arriving in your own home

Fuel cells ? always at the cutting edge of technological fields, and continuing to evolve as the centuries change. This device of dreams, in which the power of “knowledge” is crystallized, is about to be introduced into your own homes.

1.The beginning of fuel cells

1801

Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution discovers
the principle of fuel cells.

ENE-FARM extracts hydrogen from the municipal gas supply and generates electricity by reacting it with the oxygen in the air.
Its point of origin is from the fuel cell. The discovery by Sir Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution of an arrangement of fuel cells that used solid carbon was the beginning of fuel cells.
In Japan, it was the late Edo period, the period when men of art and science like Ino Tadataka and Kobayashi Issa were active.

1839

Sir William Grove succeeds in generating electricity in a
public fuel cell experiment.

1952

Francis Bacon succeeds in an experiment that becomes the prototype of the fuel cell, and was granted a patent.

2.Made practical with space development

1961

NASA starts research on fuel cells.

1965

The US Gemini V rocket heads out into space carrying fuel cells.

After the principle of fuel cells was discovered, it was made practical through the development of space in the Gemini and Apollo programs.
In addition to the fact that the resultant gases from fuel cells are clean, only water is produced, and can be drunk, so fuel cells were used in manned space ships.
The first one to actually use them was when fuel cells were added to NASAfs Gemini V rocket in 1965.

1961

Apollo 11, carrying fuel cells, succeeds in landing the first men on the moon.

3.Towards full-scale development in Japan

1981

The development of fuel cells is introduced in the “Moonlight Plan” of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (as it was then), and research development takes off.

1992

Implementation of field test using phosphoric acid fuel cells.

1993

The “New Sunshine Plan” starts in Japan.

1997

The Kyoto Protocol.
Japan agrees to reduce its greenhouse gases by 6% compared to 1990.

2000

The “Millennium Project” starts as a national project of Japan to research the practical application of small-scale stationary fuel cells.

2005

The first commercial household-use fuel cell in the world is installed in the Prime Minister¸s official residence.

2009

Household-use fuel cells start being installed in normal homes.

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