Ballard Power Systems Corporation

Benno Giesecke

Brian W Wells

Gregory A James

NengYou Jia

George Alexander Skinner

Charles Joseph Schembri

Tan Duc Uong

Certain fuel cells (e.g., solid polymer electrolyte fuel cells) may temporarily exhibit below normal performance after initial manufacture or after prolonged storage. While normal performance levels may be obtained after operating such fuel cells for a suitable time period, this process can take of order of days to fully complete. However, exposing the cathode to a reductant (e.g., hydrogen) can provide for normal performance levels without the need for a lengthy initial operating period.

Conditioning method for fuel cells

A fuel cell system includes fuel cells forming a fuel cell stack, having a fuel passage and an oxidant passage. A purge valve is coupled to the fuel passage to exhaust contaminants, and a controller is coupled to temporarily increase the oxidant stream flow rate through the oxidant passage, and to temporarily open the fuel purge valve, if a voltage across a pair of fuel cells is less than a defined threshold voltage. In this resuscitation step, the oxidant flow rate can be temporarily increased by increasing a duty cycle of an air compressor by approximately 50% for a duration of between approximately 5 to 10 seconds. The controller can further shut down fuel cell operation if a voltage across a pair of fuel cells is less than a defined threshold voltage in an inter-resuscitation period immediately following the resuscitation step.

Fuel cell resuscitation method and apparatus

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Vancouver, Canada

Benno Giesecke