Aeg Energietechnik Gmbh

Gerhard Filip

Karl Kriechbaum

Bernd Kohlstruck

Norbert Berg

Arnold Lamm

The invention relates to a fuel cell system ( ) comprising an anode chamber ( ) and a cathode chamber ( ) which are separated from each other by a proton conducting membrane ( ). When the fuel cell system is operated, fuel, in particular H or a water/methanol mixture, can be fed to the anode chamber and an oxidant, in particular oxygen, can be fed to the cathode chamber. In standby mode, the cathode chamber ( ) does not allow flow through and the oxidant and fuel are present in both the cathode chamber ( ) and the anode chamber ( ), respectively. The fuel cell system remains at operating temperature in the standby mode. This enables the fuel cell system ( ) to be used as a combined interruption-free power supply unit and backup unit.

Fuel cell system

The invention relates to a fuel cell system with high-temperature fuel cells, in which some of the heat of the gases flowing out of the anode and cathode is used to that end. The gases that the flow into the anode and cathode are brought to a temperature that is required for operation of the fuel cells and is still tolerable for the cells, having an anode and/or cathode loop. It is provided that for the anode and/or cathode loop, at least that time-referred quantity of reaction gases that is required for attaining the electrical output of the fuel cells is furnished. From the gas flowing out of the anode and/or cathode, an equivalent quantity of gas is removed from the gas loop, and the gas quantity introduced into the loop is dimensioned such that by mixing this gas quantity with the gas returned to the loop from the anode and/or cathode, the temperature of the gas flowing into the anode and/or cathode attains a predetermined operating temperature that is optimal for the service life of the cells and for efficiency.

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Kronberg, Germany

Gerhard Filip