Open Access Journal Journal of Power Technologies 93 (5) (2013) 394–397 Powering Fuel Cells with Crude Oil Pawel Wlodarczyk ∗ , Barbara Wlodarczyk Department of Engineering Process Opole University, Poland Abstract Over the last few decades the demand for energy has increased significantly. Energy production is based mainly on coal, crude oil, natural gas and nuclear energy. Over the last few years alternative energy sources have been developing. One of these sources are fuel cells (FC), mainly due to their high efficiency. FCs convert chemical fuel directly into electrical energy without combustion. Generally FCs are powered by hydrogen. However, problems with the storage of hydrogen are driving a search for new FC friendly fuels. The paper presents the possibility of using crude oil as a fuel for FCs. As crude oil does not have the feature of electrical conductivity, a detergent—nonionic surfactant—was used to dissolve oil in an electrolyte. The work explores electrooxidation of a crude oil emulsion prepared on the basis of a nonionic surfactant on a platinum electrode in an aqueous solution of H 2 SO 4 . The resulting current density reached 10 mA/cm 2 , at a potential of about 1.30 V, which clearly demonstrates it is possible to use crude oil as a fuel for FCs. Keywords: fuel cells, electrooxidation, crude oil, fuel 1. Introduction As living standards rise, so does energy consump- tion. The massive increases in demand seen over the last few decades, among other causes, have left the power sector struggling. Energy production is gen- erally based on coal, crude oil, natural gas and nu- clear energy. In recent years there has been an up- surge of interest and research in alternative energy sources such as photovoltaic cells, solar panels, heat pumps and wind turbines. One of these sources is FCs, mainly due to their high efficiency. The prin- ciples of operation of the FC has been known from 1839 [1]. The theoretical efficiency of a reversible galvanic cell can reach 100%. In fact, actual effi- ciency varies in the range 40-80%. In addition, FCs ∗ Corresponding author Email address: (Pawel Wlodarczyk ∗ ) feature zero or low negative impact on the environ- ment and silent operation. Generally, FCs are pow- ered by hydrogen [2–4]. However, problems with storage of hydrogen are driving a search for new fu- els for FCs [5–8]. This paper presents the possibility of using crude oil as a fuel for FCs. FCs converts chemical fuel directly into electrical energy, without combustion. The efficiency of the fuel cell can be calculated from Eq. (1). η = ΔG ΔH = 1 − T ΔS ΔH (1) Eq. (1) shows that the efficiency of the cell de- pends on the magnitude and sign of entropy. From the equation we see that if for the reaction in a fuel cell ΔH > 0 and Δ > 0, then the thermodynamic factor of efficiency is η< 1 and it decreases as the temperature increases [9]. The maximum energy of chemical conversion of the energy into work is equal to the free energy reac-