 Michael
Faraday (1791-1867) first discovered that by passing
an electric current through a liquid (such as water)
gasses were produced that were the basic constituents
of the liquid.
In the case of water the constiuents were the two gasses
hydrogen and oxygen.
A contemporary of Faraday's was an english lawyer and
sometime physist named William Robert Grove (1811-1896).
Grove wondered whether the reverse might be made
to happen. If the two gasses
(hydrogen and oxygen) could be combined back together
maybe an elecric current could
be generated. In a letter to Faraday in 1842 he described
an arrangement he had
used to produce electric current from a chemical reaction
and called it the "gas
battery". We
now know of it as the fuel cell.
The fuel cell laguished for about 110 years until
a very efficient power source was needed by NASA
to power space craft in the late 1950's.
Volumes have been written on the history of the fuel
cell so we would like to refer you to the following
links for more information:
-
NASA
-
Smithsonian Institute
-
European Fuel Cell Forum
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