Talk:Regenerative fuel cell

This needs cleaning up

 * No kidding! I wrote most of it, so it's hard for me to do it. Someone please narrow it down so it looks like a more succint and structured encyclopedia entry, instead of a long winded free flowing opinion/argument.
 * I did some cleaning up. I'm not sure how relevant the whole efficiency discussion is. All the relevant material here could probably be folded into Fuel cell. --Tysto 03:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The intro section describing what exactly a regenerative fuel cell is is just wrong. And other references to it using that description elsewhere in the article are also by default. A regenerative fuel cell is an electrochemical reactor that has two modes of operation. Its primary mode of operation is as a fuel cell producing primarily elctricity via the passage of fuel and oxidant energy sources, (hydrogen and oxygen for this type of fuel cell), through a reactor section that strips electrons from the fuel source for electricitry production purposes. The fuel cell generates electricity, some heat, and water as the products of this process. Its secondary mode of operation is as an electrolyzer regenerating the original fuel source from the primary unused output product of the fuel cell, which is pure water. Electricity is an input power source to the fuel cell in this mode of operation as is the unused water from the fuel cell output which is passed through the cell in reverse to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen again. This is the regenerative mode referred to in the name of this fuel cell design.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.64.0.252 (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

+text moved from front page
=moved text to talk page fuel cell== Mion 23:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

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Is process description correct?
In the revision I'm looking at, it says "When the fuel cell is operated in regenerative mode, the anode for the electricity production mode(fuel cell mode) becomes the cathode in the hydrogen generation mode(reverse fuel cell mode), and vice versa." I'm no expert on the subject, but from what I know of electrochemistry, that would be a bad design. It would mean that the catalyst used to evolve oxygen in electrolysis mode would be used to consume hydrogen in fuel cell mode. Likewise, the catalyst used to evolve hydrogen in the electrolysis mode would be used to consume oxygen in the fuel cell mode. If the cell design were symmetrical -- same electrode material and catalyst for both anode and cathode -- that approach would work. Although even then, switching gas connection flows between oxygen one way and hydrogen the other strikes me as a Bad Idea. But in any high performance design, I'd expect the electrodes and catalysts to be specialized for the two different reactions. It's basic thermodynamics that a good catalyst for a forward reaction is necessarily an equally good catalyst for the reverse reaction. Otherwise, the catalyst would be shifting the equilibrium point -- which would be a violation of the second law. So it makes sense to have oxygen evolution and consumption done at one electrode optimized for that function, with hydrogen evolution and consumption done at the other electrode. The gas and current flows would reverse between the two modes, but the anode would remain the anode and the cathode would remain the cathode.

There may be some reason I'm unaware of for not doing it that way -- i.e., reversing the anode and cathode functions and preserving the current flow direction between the two modes -- but if so, it requires an explanation and a reference. 50.174.63.60 (talk) 20:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Oops! "Never mind". Seems I was confused about how "anode" and "cathode" are defined. I was thinking the definition was based on relative voltage. Turns out it's based on oxidation vs. reduction. So the same electrode that functions as the anode in one mode is functioning as the cathode in the other. In both modes, one electrode deals with oxygen, the other with hydrogen. Just as I was thinking they should.

Still not a bad idea to clarify that in the article. 50.174.63.60 (talk) 20:23, 5 March 2017 (UTC)