The Future of Hydrogen Fuel - Hydrogen Fuel - page 39

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A Hydrogen Fuel

Time Line
1766— British scientist Henry Cavendish identifi es hydrogen
as a distinct element.

1783— The fi rst hydrogen balloon is launched in France.
1800— British scientists William Nicholson and Sir Anthony
Carlisle learn that applying an electric current to water
produces oxygen and hydrogen gases.

1838— Swiss-German chemist Christian Friedrich
Schönbein discovers that hydrogen and oxygen gases can be
combined in a way to produce water and electricity.
1843— British scientist Sir William Grove—later called the
“Father of the Fuel Cell”—creates a “gas battery,” which is
basically a fuel cell.

1920s— German engineer Rudolph Erren converts a
standard internal-combustion engine to use hydrogen or
hydrogen mixtures.
1959— Professor Francis T. Bacon of Cambridge University
in England builds the fi rst hydrogen-air fuel cell, which
powers a welding machine.

1959— Harry Karl Ihrig, an engineer at the Allis-
Chalmers Manufacturing Company in the United States,
demonstrates the fi rst vehicle powered by a fuel cell—a
20-horsepower farm tractor.