A fuel cell is a galvanic cell that requires a constant external supply of what?
complexes
generators
electricity
reactants
Fuel Cells A fuel cell is a galvanic cell that requires a constant external supply of reactants because the products of the reaction are continuously removed. Unlike a battery, it does not store chemical or electrical energy; a fuel cell allows electrical energy to be extracted directly from a chemical reaction. In principle, this should be a more efficient process than, for example, burning the fuel to drive an internal combustion engine that turns a generator, which is typically less than 40% efficient, and in fact, the efficiency of a fuel cell is generally between 40% and 60%. Unfortunately, significant cost and reliability problems have hindered the wide-scale adoption of fuel cells. In practice, their use has been restricted to applications in which mass may be a significant cost factor, such as US manned space vehicles. These space vehicles use a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell that requires a continuous input of H2(g) and O2(g), as illustrated in Figure 19.16 "A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Produces Electrical Energy Directly from a Chemical Reaction". The electrode reactions are as follows: Equation 19.93.