Is There Any Hazardous Material in Fuel Cell?

Tell us where you are, and why you want to know

"is there anything negative about fuel cell?" Yes.

I am from Asia with background in mechanical engineering, totally new to fuel cell technology

Maybe narrow down to Polymer exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) type of fuel cell since they are more viable for large scale production.

Interested to know if there are any hazardous / rare materials used in fuel cells.

e.g. Platinum is required as catalyst, it is costly.

why I want to know if there are any hazardous material? Cos I am thinking would it just create another environmental problem when the fuel cell are disposed.

why I want to know if there are any rare material? Looking at what is the potential of reducing the cost of fuel cell by subsitituting these materials.

The answer to both your questions is 'Yes'.

The following link goes into much, much more detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

The biggest hazard to fuel cells is -

Where do you get the hydrogen from?!?!?!?!

By electrolysis, using electricity from dirty coal burning power plants? What have you gained except moving the pollution problem geographically - and in today's carbon climate we are all under one roof.

Good Bye.

there can be some heavy metals as part of the manufacturing process. also, certain chemicals and solvents can be used for etching and cleaning.

<...Is there any harzardous material created or required during the manufacturing of fuel cell?...>

Water is hazardous. The LD50 in humans is about 18 gallons, though one might drown in rather less.

What is a fuel cell? Once you have found out what it is, let me know and I could relate it to what I have been working on. The only dangers I see in manufacturing them is loosing ones mind over the complexity of all components and by-products that can appear when one is to generous with speculation.

I am not sure about it catching on fast either, Ky.