International Seminar on Renewable Energies in Indonesia: Fuel Cells, a Renewable Energy Solution
By UKM Student English Forum
Editor UKM Student English Forum
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id- Energy is what moves the world and rolls the weels of human civilization. As a component that has important meaning, the existence of usable energy in the long run is one of the main challenges of development and governance. This is why ITB, in collaboration with Technische Universitaet Berlin, held the International Seminar on Renewable Energies in Indonesia- Potentials and Sustainable Solutions, and discussing the potential utilization a new technology; fuel cells.
In a lecture themed "Fuel Cell: An Environmentally Clean and Efficient Source of Energy", Prof. Dr. Ismunandar explained the history, previous applications, and various researches on fuel cells. According to him, fuel cells has a very bright prospect to be utilized as energy source. Fuel cells has high efficiency and do not emit pollution.
In ITB alone, research groups on fuel cells consist of three field groups, which are hydrogen storage material computation, PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell), and DMFC (Direct Methanol Fuel Cell), and groups that learn electrolyte oxide classes. Some good examples of the researches involved are researches on sulphonated polystiren lignosulphonate, apatite materials, and modelling how oxides move in apatite materials.
Ismunandar stated that the utilization of fuel cells has high potential to be applied in other fields. In the future, fuel cells can be utilized to provide power to power systems or electronic utilities and household apparels. It can even be utilized to power up city-scaled transportation systems.
In the research world, Ismunandar also stressed that there are a few research challenges in the fuel cell technology. These challenges involve electrocatalysts that are tolerant to CO, the difficulty in finding good PEMFC and DMFC, also the difficulty in finding the appropriate media's temperature.
