Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.k.

Hayato Kaji

Masahiko Sato

Shinya Watanabe

Shigeru Inai

Kaoru Fukuda

Masaki Tani

Takeshi Muro

Narutoshi Sugita

Kentaro Ishida

Shuhei Goto

Naoki Mitsuta

Nagayuki Kanaoka

Makoto Tsuji

Masaru Iguchi

Hiromichi Yoshida

Hiroshi Sohma

Masao Utsunomiya

Hiroshi Shinkai

Hiroshi Morikawa

Satoru Terada

Katsuhiko Kohyama

Chikara Iwasawa

Akihiro Matsui

Tomoyuki Tada

Takahiro Takai

Masahiko Inoue

Shohei Toyota

A voltage is applied between an anode and a cathode in a fuel cell. The voltage is increased to a predetermined upper limit, and then decreased to a predetermined lower limit. The voltage increase and decrease are repeated a predetermined number of times. The voltage is applied to the fuel cell while supplying a hydrogen-containing gas to an anode and supplying an inert gas to a cathode.

Fuel cell activation method

A fuel cell includes a membrane-electrode assembly and a separator. The membrane-electrode assembly has an electrolyte and a pair of electrodes that are disposed on respective sides of the electrolyte. The membrane-electrode assembly and the separator are stacked in a stacking direction. A reaction surface of the membrane-electrode assembly is in a vertical direction along a direction of gravity and has a shape having a longer dimension in a horizontal direction. The fuel cell is provided with a reactant gas passage to allow a reactant gas to flow along a longitudinal direction of the reaction surface. The reactant gas is an oxidant gas or a fuel gas. A drain channel to allow product water from the reactant gas passage to be drained away is disposed between the membrane-electrode assembly and the separator and under the reaction surface in the direction of gravity.

Fuel cell

A terminal plate, an insulating plate, and an end plate are stacked on a stack body. The terminal plate has current collectors at least at lower portions of an oxygen-containing gas supply passage, a coolant supply passage, a fuel gas discharge passage, a fuel gas supply passage, a coolant discharge passage, and an oxygen-containing gas discharge passage. The current collectors contact the water generated in the reaction or a coolant for collecting electricity.

Fuel cell stack comprising current collector provided at least at one fluid passage

The present invention provides an electrode structure for polymer electrolyte fuel cells, inexpensive, and exhibiting excellent power production capacity and durability even under high temperature/low humidity conditions, and also provides a polymer electrolyte fuel cell which incorporates the same electrode structure. The present invention also provides an electrical device and transportation device, each incorporating the same polymer electrolyte fuel cell. The electrode structure comprises a pair of electrode catalyst layers, each containing a catalyst supported by carbon particles, and polymer electrolyte membraneplaced between these electrode catalyst layers. The polymer electrolyte membraneis of a sulfonated polyarylene composed of 0.5 to 100% by mol of the first repeating unit represented by the general formula (1) and 0 to 99.5% by mol of the second repeating unit represented by the general formula (2): (wherein, A is a divalent organic group; and a benzene ring includes its derivative), (wherein, &#x2014;W&#x2014; is a divalent electron attracting group; -T- is a divalent organic group; and Rto Rare a hydrogen atom or fluorine atom, an alkyl group, fluorine-substituted alkyl group, allyl group, aryl group or cyano group, and may be the same or different).

Electrode structure for polymer electrolyte fuel cells, and polymer electrolyte fuel cell using the same

An electrode for a solid polymer fuel cell includes a gas diffusion layer, an electrode catalyst layer disposed between a solid polymer membrane of the fuel cell and the gas diffusion layer, and a water-holding layer disposed between the gas diffusion layer and the electrode catalyst layer. Under high-relative humidity conditions of reaction gases, flooding can be prevented because the electrode catalyst layer is made porous, while under low-relative humidity conditions of reaction gases, sufficient water contents can be stably provided thanks to the water-holding layer so that proton conductivity of the solid polymer membrane can be maintained appropriately. Consequently, high-performance and high-durability electrode and membrane electrode assembly for a solid polymer fuel cell can be provided such that the performance and the durability thereof are not affected by change in relative humidity in reactant gases supplied to the solid polymer fuel cell.

Electrode for solid polymer fuel cell

A membrane electrode assembly for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell has a polymer electrolyte membrane, an anode, and a cathode having a catalytic layer and a diffusion layer. The alloy catalyst contains ruthenium in the anode diffusion layer. The assembly has less loss of efficiency, particularly when operated at high potentials.

Membrane electrode assembly for polymer electrolyte fuel cell

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Wako, Japan

Hayato Kaji