"Better water management is fundamental to meeting targets for fuel cell performance, reliability and durability. Reaching these targets, in turn, is integral to efforts to replace petroleum with hydrogen to power cars and trucks by 2020--the goal of President Bush's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.
In fuel cells, which actually are stacks of battery-like devices, water is the by-product of the chemical process that uses electrons stripped from hydrogen molecules to generate electricity. With the newly commissioned Neutron Imaging Facility, water quantities smaller than 1 microgram (millionth of a gram) are revealed, and details as small as 0.02 millimeter can be discerned in images. Even better spatial resolution is expected.
