About NFCEP - Eco Soul

Founded in 1993 Eco Soul Inc. is a 501(C)3 non profit focusing on education, energy, and the environment. For millions of years nature has woven a highly complex, novel, and renewable web of life around this entire water planet. For the last hundred years or so industrial man has chosen at his peril to tear away, large segments of this web.

Renewable Hydrogen provides an opportunity to follow a path clearly illustrated by the infinite wisdom of nature. Renewable Hydrogen production mimics photosynthesis as a renewable process of nature. In mimicking nature we can focus on mending the web and with the right education initiative this path can lead us to a renewable energy infrastructure.

Please become a Renewable Hydrogen Activist and participate in the National and International Fuel Cell Education Program of Eco Soul.

What is Solar Hydrogen and Why is it Important?

The use of solar energy for our everyday electricity needs has distinct advantages: we avoid degrading the environment through polluting emissions, oil spills, and toxic byproducts. Renewable energy frees people from finite, unstable energy resources.

There is, however, one disadvantage to solar energy: the sun does not always shine. We need a way to store solar energy for times when the sun is not shining. Hydrogen provides a safe, efficient, clean way to do this. Here's how the Renewable Hydrogen cycle works: electricity from photovoltaic panels and wind turbines may be used to run an electrolyzer, a device which splits water (H20) into its elemental parts, hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2). The oxygen is released into the air and the hydrogen is pumped into storage tanks, where it can be kept on site or transported to sun-poor regions.

At night, when solar energy is not available, the hydrogen is recombined with oxygen from the air in a fuel cell, an electrochemical power plant that directly converts the chemical energy in hydrogen into electricity. The only byproduct of this process is pure water.

Electricity from fuel cells may be used in the same way as grid power: to run appliances and light bulbs, and even to power cars. Solar Hydrogen allows us to use the power from the sun twenty-four hours a day, and provides us with an abundant, clean, efficient, locally produced source of energy.

What is a Reversible Fuel Cell and Why is it Important?

A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. It is two to three times more efficient at converting fuel to power than conventional combustion technologies (e.g., internal combustion engine) of the same size.

A fuel cell produces electricity, water and heat using fuel and oxygen in the air through a single electrochemical process.

Water is the only emission when hydrogen is the fuel.

As hydrogen flows into the fuel cell on the anode side, a platinum catalyst facilitates the separation of the hydrogen gas into electrons and protons (hydrogen ions). The hydrogen ions pass through the membrane (the center part of a fuel cell) and, again with the help of a platinum catalyst, combine with oxygen and electrons on the cathode side producing water. The electrons, which cannot pass through the membrane, flow from the anode to the cathode through an external circuit containing an electric load which consumes the power generated by the cell. The overall electrochemical process of a fuel cell is called "reverse hydrolysis," or the opposite of hydrolyzing water to form hydrogen and oxygen. A reversible fuel cell can accomplish "hydrolysis" through the supply of electricity to the cell and supply of water to the cathode.

Only certain fuel cell types are reversible, that is, can accomplish the electrochemistry associated with both the production of electricity from fuel and oxidant and the production of fuel and oxidant from water when supplied with electricity. The unified regenerative fuel cell concept is one that incorporates a reversible fuel cell that can accomplish both hydrolysis and reverse hydrolysis in the same cell. This allows one to consider the completely renewable production of electricity by using a renewable energy supply (e.g., solar, wind) to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water which can subsequently be used to produce electricity through the same fuel cell from the fuel and oxidant produced previously. This process is analogous to naturally observed and completely renewable processes of nature. One example of such an analogous process is photosynthesis which converts solar energy and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to useful biofuels, which are subsequently used for plant growth.