Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) and Solid Oxide (SOFC) Fuel Cell Based Vehicles-a Review

Interests in clean energy technologies have been growing in recent years especially for transportation, portable equipments as well as stationary power applications. Among the clean technology that gained high attention and investment to date is fuel cell, as a fuel cells is known to be able to produce electricity from a wide selection of fuels such as biogas, natural gas, propane, methanol, hydrogen as well as diesel. In order to contribute to the development of this particular clean energy, we review types of fuel cell particularly in transportation application to date and discuss the challenges for sustainable Fuel Cells Vehicles (FCVs) in future development. In this review paper, we also reviewed the development of FCVs of PEM and SOFC based, specifically. Although much progress has been done for PEM based vehicles thus far, the gas contamination is still a known bottleneck. As for SOFC, there is a lot more room to be improved in order to adopt this type of fuel cell in vehicle such as long time start-up time, insulation and heat dispersion. Nonetheless, SOFC has attained significant interests because it have zero emissions of pollutants to the environment and have high efficiency. Also, having high temperature operation offers many advantages, such as flexibility of using various fuels, high electrochemical reaction rate, and tolerance for impurities. In addition, using ceramics as its electrolyte can reduces the cost of manufacturing.