Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Junji Niikura

Kazuhito Hatoh

Teruhisa Kanbara

Hisaaki Gyoten

Hideo Ohara

Eiichi Yasumoto

Takaharu Gamo

Noboru Taniguchi

Makoto Uchida

Osamu Sakai

Toshihiro Matsumoto

Yasushi Sugawara

Kazufumi Nishida

Akihiko Yoshida

Masao Yamamoto

Yasuo Takebe

Masato Hosaka

Nobuhiro Hase

Takaharu Gamou

Masayo Sugou, Legal Representative

Hiroki Kusakabe

Satoru Fujii

Nobuhiko Hojo

Shinsuke Takeguchi

Junji Morita

Taisuke Yamamoto

Kinichi Adachi

Susumu Kobayashi

Yoshio Moriwaki

Hiroshi Shimoda

Tsutomu Iwaki

Shinji Kinoshita

Yoshiaki Yamamoto

Atsushi Mukoyama

Masayo Sugou

A proton conductor comprises a base material, an acidic substance and a basic substance, wherein the acidic substance has protons; at least part of the protons are dissociated by the basic substance; and at least one of the acidic and basic substances is immobilized on a surface of the base material. At least part of the acidic substance and/or at least part of the basic substance may be a polymer. A powder or a porous body having pores or through-holes can be used as the base material. An organic compound having a hydrophilic part and a hydrophobic part in the molecule can be used as the at least one of the acidic and basic substances.

Proton conductor, electrolyte membrane, electrode and fuel cell

A fuel cartridge () includes a fuel storage container (), and a fuel supply port () for taking out a fuel stored in the fuel storage container (). The fuel supply port () is provided with a fuel supply port protecting mechanism. The fuel supply port protecting mechanism includes a door () for opening/closing an opening () provided between the fuel supply port () and an outside, and a lock mechanism () for locking the door () so that the door () does not open. This can prevent, with the fuel cartridge not installed on a fuel cell, the leakage of a fuel from the fuel cartridge caused by improper handling by a user, etc.

Fuel cartridge for fuel cell, and fuel cell

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell of the present invention includes conductive separator plates comprising molded plates of a composition comprising a binder, conductive carbon particles whose average particle diameter is not less than 50 &#x3bc;m and not more than &#x2153; of the thickness of the thinnest portion of the conductive separator plate, and at least one of conductive carbon fine particles and micro-diameter carbon fibers. The separator plates do not require conventional cutting processes for gas flow channels, etc., and can be easily mass produced by injection molding and achieve a reduction in the cost.

Polymer electrolyte type fuel cell

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell of the present invention includes a hydrogen ion-conductive polymer electrolyte membrane, an anode and a cathode sandwiching the hydrogen ion-conductive polymer electrolyte membrane, an anode-side conductive separator plate having a gas flow channel for supplying a fuel gas to the anode, and a cathode-side conductive separator plate having a gas flow channel for supplying an oxidant gas to the cathode. Each of the anode-side conductive separator plate and the cathode-side conductive separator plate is rectangle in shape and has an oxidant gas manifold aperture for an inlet arranged on one short side thereof, an oxidant gas manifold aperture for an outlet arranged on the other short side thereof, a fuel gas manifold aperture for an inlet and a fuel gas manifold aperture for an outlet arranged on different longitudinal sides thereof, and a cooling water manifold aperture for an inlet and a cooling water manifold aperture for an outlet arranged on the different longitudinal sides thereof. The respective fuel gas manifold apertures are disposed opposite to the cooling water manifold apertures. The oxidant gas manifold apertures, the fuel gas manifold apertures, and the cooling water manifold apertures have openings of different shapes.

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell

In a polymer electrolyte fuel cell including a hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane; a pair of electrodes composed of catalyst layers sandwiching the hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane between them and gas diffusion layers in contact with the catalyst layers; a conductive separator plate having a gas flow channel for supplying a fuel gas to one of the electrodes; and a conductive separator plate having a gas flow channel for supplying an oxidant gas to the other electrode, in order to bring a hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte and a catalyst metal of the catalyst layers containing the hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte and conductive carbon particles carrying the catalyst metal sufficiently and uniformly into contact with each other, the polymer electrolyte is provided in pores of an agglomerate structure of the conductive carbon particles. Consequently, the reaction area inside the electrodes is increased, and higher performance is exhibited.

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprising: a plurality of conductive separator plates, each comprising a corrugated metal plate; an electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly inserted between the separator plates, the electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly including a hydrogen-ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane having its periphery covered with a gasket, an anode attached to one side of the electrolyte membrane, and a cathode attached to the other side of the electrolyte membrane; and gas charge and discharge device for charging and discharging a fuel gas and an oxidant gas to and from the anode and the cathode, respectively, wherein the gas charge and discharge device charges and discharges the fuel gas to and from the anode through the grooves on one side of the corrugated metal plate and charges and discharges the oxidant gas to and from the cathode through the grooves on the other side of the corrugated metal plate.

An operation method is provided for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell in an optimum operating condition by regulating the cell by a function represented by a gas flow rate and the difference between a saturated steam pressure and an actual steam pressure, by regulating an in-plane temperature distribution obtained by a cooling water flow direction and by the regulation of a cooling water inlet temperature and a cooling water flow amount; a gas supply amount; a supplied moisture amount; and a current density.

Operation method for polymer electrolyte fuel cell

A porous supporting carbon body of a gas diffusion layer is provided with a larger number of smaller pores at its catalyst layer side and a smaller number of larger pores at the other side, particularly with an appropriate distribution of finer mesh at its catalyst layer side and coarser mesh at the other side. As a result, a high performance polymer electrolyte fuel cell is obtained in which water generated at the catalyst layer is quickly sucked out to the gas diffusion layer, and is evaporated at the gas diffusion layer to be effectively exhausted to outside the fuel cell, so that excessive water can be prevented from retaining in the gas diffusion electrode, with the polymer electrolyte membrane being maintained at an appropriately wet condition.

The invention relates to a polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprising a polymer electrolyte film of hydrogen ion conduction; an anode and a cathode between which the electrolyte film is placed; a conductive separator having a channel through which fuel gas is supplied to the anode, and a conductive separator having a channel through which oxidative gas is supplied to the cathode. The conventional conductive separator uses a carbon material that is unlikely to be less costly, and an attempt has been made to use a metal plate in place of the carbon material. Since the metal plate is exposed to an oxidizing atmosphere at high temperature for a long time, however, corrosion may occur, disadvantageously causing the efficiency of power generation to decrease gradually. The polymer electrolyte fuel cell of this invention uses an acid-resistant conductive airtight elastomer as a conductive separator for substantial cost reduction.

A polymer-electrolyte fuel cell having: an electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly having a polymer-electrolyte membrane and a pair of gas-diffusion electrodes sandwiching the polymer-electrolyte membrane; a first electroconductive separator having a gas channel for supplying an oxidant gas to one of the gas-diffusion electrodes of said pair; and a second electroconductive separator having a gas channel for supplying a fuel gas to the other of the gas-diffusion electrodes of the pair. The polymer-electrolyte fuel cell is characterized in that: at least one of the first and second electroconductive separators has a metal substrate and an electroconductive resin layer on the substrate and contacting the electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly; and the electroconductive resin layer has a resin having water-repellant or basic radicals, and an electroconductive particulate substance which has a carbon powder of a specific surface area of less than 100 m/g.

It has been difficult to keep the voltage of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell stable for a long period of time because uniform water content control over the plane of the membrane-electrode assembly is impossible. A gas diffusion electrode is produced by forming a conductive polymer layer composed of conductive particles and a polymer material on a porous material composed of carbon fiber, and forming a catalyst layer composed of platinum-carried carbon particles on the plane of the conductive polymer layer. The conductive polymer layer is composed of conductive particles different in particle size, and the content of the conductive particles having the smaller particle size is decreased from one end towards the other end of the gas diffusion electrode.

Gas diffusion electrode and fuel cell using this

The present invention relates to a polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprising: an electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly including an anode, a cathode and a polymer electrolyte membrane interposed therebetween; an anode-side conductive separator plate having a gas flow channel for supplying a fuel gas to the anode; and a cathode-side conductive separator plate having a gas flow channel for supplying an oxidant gas to the cathode. A conductive separator plate made of carbon has poor wettability with water. This has posed the disadvantage that variations in performance are induced by nonuniform gas distribution among cells due to the accumulation of product water or humidifying water in the gas flow channel on the surface of the separator plate. The present invention employs a conductive separator plate comprising a conductive carbon having a hydrophilic functional group, at least in a portion of the gas flow channels, thereby preventing water from accumulating in the gas flow channels.

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell and method of manufacturing the same

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprises a separator plate having a gas channel for supplying an oxidant gas or a fuel gas to an electrode, said separator plate comprising a metal plate, a conductive film formed on the surface of the metal plate, and a diffused layer resulting from diffusion of a material of the conductive film formed between the metal plate and the conductive film. The fuel cell produces stable output free from corrosion or dissolution of the metal plate even in a long-term operation.

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprising a hydrogen-ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane, an anode and a cathode sandwiching the hydrogen-ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane, an anode-side conductive separator plate having gas flow channels for supplying a fuel gas to the anode, and a cathode-side conductive separator plate having gas flow channels for supplying an oxidant gas to the cathode, wherein the anode-side and cathode-side conductive separator plates have a substantially rectangular part in contact with the anode or cathode in which the length of a longer side is equal to or more than twice the length of a shorter side, and the oxidant gas flow channels have a linear part formed along the longer side of the rectangular part.

A method for producing a membrane electrode assemblyfor solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell, the membrane electrode assemblyincluding a solid polymer electrolyte membranecomprising an ion exchange membrane, a first electrodehaving a first catalyst layer, and a second electrodehaving a second catalyst layer, the first electrodeand the second electrodebeing disposed so as to be opposed to each other via the ion exchange membrane, the method including: applying a coating solution containing a catalyst onto a base filmto form a first catalyst layer; applying a coating solution containing an ion exchange resin dissolved or dispersed in a liquid onto the first catalyst layerto form an ion exchange membrane; then applying a coating solution containing a catalyst onto the ion exchange membrane to form a second catalyst layer; and finally, peeling off the base filmfrom a resulting laminate. According to this method, it is possible to produce membrane electrode assemblyfor high-performance solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell having catalyst layers each having a uniform thickness efficiently and continuously.

Growing community of inventors

Hirakata, Japan

Junji Niikura