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Biography of Francis Thomas (Tom) Bacon

British engineer who developed the first practical hydrogen oxygen fuel cells, which

convert air and fuel directly into electricity through electrochemical processes. In 1932,

the inventions by engineer Francis Bacon resulted in the first successful fuel cell

devices. He improved on the expensive platinum catalysts employed by Mond andLanger with a hydrogen-oxygen cell using a less corrosive alkaline electrolyte and

inexpensive nickel electrodes.

In 1959, a quarter of a century later, Bacon and his coworkers were able to

demonstrate a practical five-kilowatt system capable of powering a welding machine.

Francis Thomas Bacon was born at Ramsden Hall, Billericay, Essex, UK, on 21

December 1904, as a direct descendant of Sir Francis Bacon. He was educated at Eton

College 1918-1922, specialising in science and winning the Moseley Physics Prize in

1922 and at Trinity College, Cambridge obtaining a third class in the Mechanical

Sciences Tripos in 1925.

He served an apprenticeship at C.A. Parsons & Co. Ltd, Heaton Works, Newcastle upon

Tyne, 1925-1928, subsequently working in the Searchlight Reflector and Research and

Development Departments at Parsons, 1928-1940. It was while at Parsons in 1932

that he first came to appreciate the potential of the fuel cell and set himself the task of

carrying out the practical engineering to prepare the way for it to be considered for

commercial application.

This was initially undertaken surreptitiously at Parsons but in 1940-1941 Bacon was

able to start full-time work on the hydrogen oxygen fuel cell at Kings College London

with the financial support of the consulting engineers Merz and McLellan. Although Sir

William Grove had discovered the principle of fuel cells in 1842, they were considered ascientific curiosity until the early 1940s.

Francis Thomas Bacon began experimenting with alkali electrolytes in the late 1930s,

settling on potassium hydroxide (KOH) instead of using the acid electrolytes known

since Groves early discoveries. KOH performed as well as acid electrolytes and was

not as corrosive to the electrodes. Bacons cell also used porous gas-diffusion

electrodes rather than solid electrodes as Grove had used.

Gas-diffusion electrodes increased the surface area in which the reaction between the

electrode, the electrolyte and the fuel occurs. Also, Bacon used pressurized gases to

keep the electrolyte from flooding the tiny pores in the electrodes. Over the course of

the following twenty years, Bacon made enough progress with the alkali cell to present

large scale demonstrations.

From 1941 to 1946 he was temporary experimental officer at H.M. Anti-Submarine

Experimental Establishment, Fairlie, Ayrshire, working on ASDIC, the underwater

submarine detection system. In 1946 Bacon resumed experimental work on the

hydrogen oxygen fuel cell at Cambridge University, first in the Department of Colloid

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Science, then in the Department of Metallurgy and from 1951 to 1956 in the

Department of Chemical Engineering.

This work was supported financially by the Electrical Research Association (ERA). In

1956 Bacon became consultant to the National Research and Development Corporation

(NRDC) undertaking fuel cell development work at the Cambridge engineering firmMarshalls where a 6 kW forty cell battery unit was demonstrated in August 1959.

From 1962 to 1971 he was principal consultant to Energy Conversion Ltd (ECL), the

first British effort to manufacture fuel cells. From 1971 to 1973 he was Consultant on

Fuel Cells to Fuel Cells Ltd, at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell. In

1973 he retired though he continued to follow the development of fuel cells very

closely for the rest of his life.

Although Bacon hoped to see the adoption of a high efficiency/low pollution fuel cell in

everyday applications such as transport, it was in the unforeseen application of space

exploration that the Bacon cell achieved its most notable success in his lifetime. In the

USA the Pratt and Whitney Division of United Aircraft took out a licence on the Bacon

patents and used the concept of the Bacon cell in a successful bid to provide electrical

power for the Apollo moonshot.

The fuel cells operated successfully in the manned moon flights and subsequent space

applications, providing electricity for the functioning of systems and the production of

drinking water. Thus Bacons pioneering work may be considered essential to the

Apollo programme. By the end of the century, the technology was being developed

internationally.

Bacon was elected FRS in 1973 and became an initial Fellow of the Fellowship of

Engineering in 1976. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire

(1967), elected a fellow of the Royal Society (1973), and awarded the first Grove

Medal (1991). He died in 1992.