nature of the chemicals. In 1946, under new funding arrangements, the work moved to the Department of Colloid Science at Cambridge University. 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 solution followed by drying and heating. In 1959, with support from Marshall of Cambridge Ltd. (later Marshall Aerospace) a 5 kW forty-cell battery, with an operating efficiency of 60%, was demonstrated publicly. The patents for the fuel cell were licensed by Pratt and Whitney 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. 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. 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 Fuel Cell References External links The Papers of Francis Bacon held at Churchill Archives Centre Online biography of Francis Thomas Bacon https://sites.google.com/site/littleshelfordhistory/famous-people-from-little-shelfords-history/tom-bacon 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