Confirm the statement that oxidation of 1.0 L of methanol to form CO2(g) and H20(l) in a fuel cell provide at least 5.0 kW-h of energy. (The density of methanol is 0.787 g/mL.)Can someone please help me with this problem.I don't understand it.
There is a missing number: you need the heat of combustion of methanol, which is about 80,000 BTU per gallon. If you convert this to metric units, and assume (because of the reference to the fuel cell) that all the heat is transformed into electricity, you can determine the amount of electricity created. The gotcha is that fuel cells are pretty much limited to hydrogen at present; if they could burn methanol or ethanol (or better yet, alkanes such as gasoline), it would be better as any of these fuels are much more easily handled than is hydrogen.
