Francis Thomas Bacon
OBE FREng
Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK a ...
FRS (21 December 1904 – 24 May 1992) was an English
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
who in 1932 developed the first practical
hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell. It is used to generate power for
space capsule
A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...
s and
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...
s.
Life and works
Francis Thomas Bacon was born in 1904 at Ramsden Hall,
Billericay
Billericay ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Basildon, Essex, England. It lies within the London Basin and constitutes a commuter town east of Central London. The town has three secondary schools and a variety of open spaces. It i ...
, Essex, England. An engineer at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
, in 1932 he developed the
fuel cell which was used as part of the
Apollo moon project in the 1960s.
Fuel cells were first demonstrated by Sir
William Robert Grove
Sir William Robert Grove, FRS FRSE (11 July 1811 – 1 August 1896) was a Welsh judge and physical scientist. He anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy, and was a pioneer of fuel cell technology. He invented the Grove vo ...
in 1839, but his invention lay largely dormant for over 100 years until it was revived by Bacon. The
alkaline fuel cell
The alkaline fuel cell (AFC), also known as the Bacon fuel cell after its British inventor, Francis Thomas Bacon, is one of the most developed fuel cell technologies. Alkaline fuel cells consume hydrogen and pure oxygen, to produce potable wa ...
(AFC), also known as the Bacon fuel cell after its inventor, has been used in
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
space programs since the mid-1960s to generate power for
satellites and
space capsule
A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...
s. The U.S. President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
welcomed Bacon to the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
, and told him; "Without you Tom, we wouldn't have gotten to the moon.”
After the successful lunar landing of
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, ...
in July 1969, Tom and his wife Barbara met astronauts
Neil Armstrong,
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
and
Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to:
* Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician
* Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...
at a reception hosted by British Prime Minister
Harold Wilson at
10 Downing Street.
Bacon was a descendant of the family of the philosopher
Sir Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both n ...
(who had no children), and he was educated at
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...
and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
. After Cambridge he became an apprentice with the
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
engineering firm owned by Sir
Charles Parsons, and was strongly influenced by him.
The principle of the fuel cell had been demonstrated by Sir William Grove in 1839 and other investigators had experimented with various forms of fuel cell. However unlike previous workers in the field, Bacon was an engineer and he was comfortable working with machinery operating at high
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer.
Thermometers are calibrated in various Conversion of units of temperature, temp ...
s and
pressure
Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country and e ...
s. He initially experimented with Grove's use of activated
platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver".
Pla ...
gauze with a
sulphuric acid electrolyte, but quickly moved on to use activated
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...
electrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or air). Electrodes are essential parts of batteries that can consist of a variety of materials d ...
s with an aqueous
potassium hydroxide
Potassium hydroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula K OH, and is commonly called caustic potash.
Along with sodium hydroxide (NaOH), KOH is a prototypical strong base. It has many industrial and niche applications, most of which exp ...
electrolyte. In January 1940, he moved to a laboratory at
King's College London and there developed a double cell, with one unit for generating the hydrogen and oxygen gases and the other for the fuel cell proper. This could be reversed so that it acted as both an
electrolyser
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses Direct current, direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of c ...
and a fuel cell. Problems were encountered due to the high operating temperatures and pressures and the
corrosive
A corrosive substance is one that will damage or destroy other substances with which it comes into contact by means of a chemical reaction.
Etymology
The word ''corrosive'' is derived from the Latin verb ''corrodere'', which means ''to gnaw'', ...
nature of the chemicals.
In 1946, under new funding arrangements, the work moved to the Department of Colloid Science at
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
. There Bacon's team were shown a sample of porous nickel sheet whose origins were so obscure they were protected by the
Official Secrets Act. They used this sheet to develop electrodes with large pores on the gas side and finer ones on the electrolyte side, which created a much more stable interface than had existed previously.
As funding levels increased the apparatus was moved again to what was then the
Department of Chemical Engineering. There the team overcame problems of corrosion of the oxygen electrode by soaking the new nickel electrodes in
lithium hydroxide
Lithium hydroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula LiOH. It can exist as anhydrous or hydrated, and both forms are white hygroscopic solids. They are soluble in water and slightly soluble in ethanol. Both are available commercially. While ...
solution followed by drying and heating. In 1959, with support from Marshall of Cambridge Ltd. (later
Marshall Aerospace
Marshall Group, formerly Marshall of Cambridge and Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group, is a British company headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Subsidiaries include Marshall Aerospace, an aircraft maintenance, modification, and desig ...
) a 5
kW forty-cell battery, with an operating
efficiency of 60%, was demonstrated publicly.
The
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s for the fuel cell were licensed by
Pratt and Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military av ...
as part of a successful bid to provide electrical power for the
Apollo program to land man on the moon. The fuel cells were ideal in this regard because they have rising efficiency with decreasing
load, unlike
heat engines
In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower state ...
. Hydrogen and oxygen gases were already on board the ship for propulsion and life support, and the by-product water could be used for drinking and humidifying the atmosphere of the capsule.
Towards the later part of his life, Bacon was a consultant for the engineering firm Energy Conversion Limited and
Johnson Matthey
Johnson Matthey is a British multinational speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company headquartered in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
History Early years
Jo ...
. He was a Founder Fellow of the
Fellowship of Engineering and the first Honorary Member of the European Fuel Cell Group.
See also
*
Daniel Davis Jr. - electrical device inventor
*
Timeline of hydrogen technologies
This is a timeline of the history of hydrogen technology.
Timeline
16th century
* c. 1520 – First recorded observation of hydrogen by Paracelsus through dissolution of metals (iron, zinc, and tin) in sulfuric acid.
17th century
* 1625 – F ...
*
Fuel Cell
References
External links
The Papers of Francis Baconheld at
Churchill Archives Centre
The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...
Online biography of Francis Thomas Bacon* https://sites.google.com/site/littleshelfordhistory/famous-people-from-little-shelfords-history/tom-bacon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Francis Thomas
1904 births
1992 deaths
English inventors
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
People educated at Eton College
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
20th-century British engineers