Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Hideaki Kume

Yoshihito Kanno

Kotaro Ikeda

Hikaru Hasegawa

Toshiaki Kusakari

Yoshihiro Ikogi

Keiji Kishida

Noriyuki Kobayashi

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell, an impedance measuring instrument, and a control device. The control device is connected to the impedance measuring instrument. The impedance measuring instrument measures the impedance of the fuel cell according to the AC impedance method. The control device stores in advance a reference value corresponding to a reference hydrogen concentration. The control device compares the real part Z' of impedance acquired via the impedance measuring instrument against the reference value. When Z&#x2032; is equal to or greater than the reference value, the control device estimates the hydrogen concentration of the fuel cell to be equal to or less than the reference hydrogen concentration.

Apparatus for estimating fuel-cell hydrogen concentration and fuel cell system

A collector plate () is connected to an output terminal (). The collector plate () is made such that heat capacity per unit area of a neighboring region (A) thereof, which is near to a portion where the output terminal () is connected, is different to the heat capacity per unit area of other regions (B,C). More specifically, the other regions (B,C) are formed such that the heat capacity per unit area thereof is smaller than that of the neighboring region (A).

Fuel cell stack

A fuel cell having a stack structure is provided. The fuel cell includes plural unit cells each of which includes an anode and a cathode which are provided on both sides of a predetermined electrolyte membrane, and a catalytic layer which is provided in at least one of the anode and the cathode, and which supports a catalyst for promoting an anode reaction or a cathode reaction, the plural unit cells being stacked to form a stack structure. In the fuel cell, the plural unit cells include a unit cell including a catalyst layer supporting a catalyst which is different from catalysts supported by catalyst layers of other unit cells in at least one of type, weight, and specific surface area.

Fuel cell having stack structure

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Susono, Japan

Hideaki Kume