I need to know the chemistry in fuel cells and maybe some background information
A catalyst (platinum) causes hydrogen molecules to spontaneously ionize (I do not know what property of platinum causes this ionization). The hydrogen ion (a proton) passes through a special membrane that is only permeable to protons (called a Proton Exchange Membrane) into the cathode chamber. The electrons must travel through the load circuit, driven by the positive voltage generated by the presence of excess protons in the cathode chamber. In the cathode chamber, the protons, electrons, and oxygen combine to form water.
fuel cells are technically any electrochemical cell that you feed the reactants into continuously, but the main one everyone talks about is the hydrogen fuel cell: 2 H2(g) + O2(g) -2 H2O is the reaction, it needs a catalyst to make it work. Some problems that need work are hydrogen storage (so you don't have to have tanks of compressed hydrogen gas in cars) and how to keep the catalyst from losing efficiency from the H2O product or other contaminants on it's surface.
