Hitachi, Ltd.

Shin-kobe Electric Machinery Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Vehicle Energy, Ltd.

Katsunori Nishimura

Hidetoshi Honbo

Tatsuo Horiba

Mamoru Mizumoto

Akihiro Gotoh

Masahiro Komachiya

Jinichi Imahashi

Kenji Yamaga

Hiroshi Kimura

Tomoichi Kamo

Masao Shimizu

Etsuko Nishimura

Tohru Koyama

Satoru Funaki

Ko Takahashi

Tadashi Yoshida

Yoshiaki Kumashiro

Hideki Miyazaki

Takaaki Suzuki

Toshio Abe

Hironori Sasaki

Toshiyuki Kobayashi

Osamu Kubota

Makoto Morishima

Akihide Tanaka

Kazushige Kohno

Masayoshi Kanno

Yoshinari Hori

Hiroshi Yamauchi

Noriaki Arakawa

Chieko Araki

Yuki Okuda

Shinsuke Andoh

Kou Takahashi

Akihiro Takanuma

Yoshihide Kondo

A long-life battery whose properties do not deteriorate after charge-discharges cycles is provided. A non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery includes a cathode, an anode, and a non-aqueous electrolytic solution containing an electrolyte. At least one of the cathode and the anode includes a binder. The binder includes a layer having electron conductivity on a surface thereof. The binder improves the contact property between particles of the active materials of the battery and the conductivity in the electrode without impairing the binding property of the binder. Preferably, the binder includes a metal on the surface thereof and the metal does not form an alloy with lithium to further improve the lifetime of the battery.

Non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery

Provided is a technique of achieving a longer-life lithium ion secondary battery. The lithium ion secondary battery includes a cathode including a cathode active material containing Mn, an anode including an anode active material containing graphite and non-aqueous electrolytic solution including electrolyte, and LiBFand LiPFare allowed to coexist in the non-aqueous electrolytic solution. Especially preferably LiPFis contained more than LiBFin the electrolytic solution. Preferably the electrolytic solution further includes iodide salt. As a result, an oxide of phosphor and boron is deposited on the cathode, thus preventing elution of Mn included in the cathode. The amount of these electrolytes is preferably in the decreasing order of phosphor, boron and then iodine.

Lithium-ion rechargeable battery

The present invention suppresses a decrease in the capacity of a lithium ion battery. A polymer forming agent or a sacrificial reducing agent is added to a nonaqueous electrolytic solution. A voltage is then applied to between a battery container and an anode. Thus, lithium ions can be inserted into the anode to recover the capacity of the battery.

Nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery apparatus and method for charging anode of the same

A secondary battery module comprises a casing in which vents are formed so as to allow outside air to flow in a vertical direction and one or more partition walls partition an internal space of the casing into a plurality of cell chambers. The partition wall comprises the pipe member as communication path to communicate between the cell chambers and the outside of the casing so as to allow outside air to be introduced into the internal space of the cell chambers. The secondary battery module further comprises a plurality of rod-shaped battery cells housed in the cell chambers and beams to support the battery cells along a horizontal direction and at predetermined intervals in the vertical direction in the cell chambers such that a cell axis direction is perpendicular to the vertical direction and extends along the partition wall.

Secondary battery module and secondary battery module apparatus

The assembled battery system according to the present invention includes at least two non-aqueous electrolyte secondary cells, each including a positive electrode that occludes and emits lithium ions, a negative electrode that occludes and emits lithium ions, and a non-aqueous electrolyte comprising an electrolyte dissolved in a non-aqueous solvent, all received in a parallelepiped cell case. These cells are arranged so that each larger area side of an adjacent pair of the parallelepiped cell case faces in parallel one another. A cooling member with a cooling medium flow conduit is provided between each opposing pair of larger area cell case sides, and cooling medium flowing in this conduit directly contacts the sides of the parallelepiped cell cases that define the two opposite sides of the cooling conduit.

Assembled battery system with cooling member between adjacent cells

A fuel cell stack start method is to provide in which without relying on oxidation and reduction condition of an anode, an output reduction of the fuel cell stack can be avoided. In the start method of a solid polymer type fuel cell stack that is comprised of a separator including an anode flow channel for flowing a fuel, another separator including a cathode flow channel for feeding an oxidant and electrodes and an electrolyte interposed between the separators, the method is characterized by performing successively a first step of feeding the fuel to the fuel cell stack under a condition that a cathode is covered by generated water, a second step of forming an oxide layer on the cathode, a third step of feeding the oxidant gas to the fuel cell stack and a fourth step of extracting load current from the fuel cell stack.

Fuel cell stack start method preventing cathode deterioration

A fuel cell is provided which can control an optimum fuel concentration according to an output without a sensor for measuring the fuel concentration. The fuel cell uses a liquid organic compound for fuel and includes a membrane-electrode assembly, a passage for allowing fuel or oxidant to flow, a fuel supply unit for supplying the fuel to the fuel cell and intermittently or periodically changing a rate of fuel supply, and a computation processor for measuring a signal of a voltage or an output of the fuel cell, computing the rate of the fuel supply and the signal, and correcting the rate of the fuel supply. In the fuel cell, the optimum fuel concentration can be easily controlled according to the output by periodically varying the fuel concentration from a reference fuel concentration, measuring a voltage or an output and a variation range of the voltage or the output, and then determining whether the reference fuel concentration is appropriate or not.

Fuel cell using organic fuel

A lithium-ion secondary battery system is provided which can improve the cycle life and the storage property of a lithium-ion secondary battery and can decrease a discharge capacity which cannot be recharged. The lithium-ion secondary battery system includes a lithium-ion secondary battery having a cathode, an anode including carbon, and a non-aqueous electrolyte; a charge/discharge circuit for putting the lithium-ion secondary battery on charge according to a charge control parameter; and an arithmetic processing section for controlling the charge/discharge circuit. The arithmetic processing section obtains battery characteristics of the lithium-ion secondary battery, changes a value of the charge control parameter when the arithmetic processing section determines that the battery characteristics satisfies a condition for changing the charge control parameter, and restores the value of the charge control parameter to the value before the change when the charge for the lithium-ion secondary battery is finished.

Lithium-ion secondary battery system

A separator for fuel cell comprising an electrolyte with ionic conductivity, a pair of electrodes with the electrolyte sandwiched therebetween, and a separatorfor individually supplying a fuel gas and an oxidizing agent gas to the pair of the electrodes, respectively, wherein the separatoris provided with a multilayered metal sheet with at least the outermost layer thereof, and a corrosion-resistant film covering the whole surface of the metal sheet in order to form a metal separator, and the metal separator is further provided with a reacting gas sealing unit, a reacting gas manifold junction unit, and a reacting gas rectification unit, formed of an elastic body.

Separator for fuel cell

A fuel cell system for power generation comprising a solid polymer type fuel cell having a solid polymer electrolyte membrane for separating an anode gas and a cathode gas, a resistor, an inverter, a switch for switching the inverter and the resister with respect to the fuel cell, the switch and the inverter, a supply conduit and discharge conduit for the anode gas and the cathode gas, and a supply vale and a discharge valve. When a molar ratio of the hydrogen contained in the anode gas to oxygen contained in the cathode gas becomes 2/1 or less at the time of the stop of the fuel cell, the supply valve for air is closed.

Method of stopping a solid polymer type fuel cell system

The fuel cell assembly disclosed includes at least one unit fuel cell comprising a separator having flow channels for oxidizing gas, a cathode to which the oxidizing gas is fed, a membrane electrolyte of proton conductivity, an anode to which fuel gas is fed, and a separator having flow channels for the fuel gas, the above members being arranged in order. The fuel cell assembly further comprises a humidifier having a porous member to humidify at least the fuel gas to be fed to the anode. The porous member of the humidifier is so disposed as to face at least the flow channels for the oxidizing gas so that water is supplied to the flow channels from part of the surface of the porous member opposite to the water supplying face and/or from the outer periphery of the porous member.

Fuel cell with humidifier

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprises a fuel cell stack and a humidifier. The fuel cell stack includes plural cells in which each cell has a pair of electrodes and a proton-conductive electrolyte membrane arranged between the pair of electrodes, wherein an oxidant gas or a fuel gas passes through the humidifier before being fed to the fuel cell stack, and wherein a wet gas containing water or water vapor also passes through the humidifier. In the fuel cell, the humidifier includes a porous separating layer and a hydrophilic water-releasing layer, wherein the separating layer is configured to separate the wet gas from the oxidant gas or the fuel gas in the humidifier, and wherein the hydrophilic water-releasing layer is disposed in a side of the oxidant gas or the fuel gas to the separating layer in the humidifier.

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell system

A part of cell stack portions constituting a part of a fuel cell stack is used as a voltage detection portion, the size of a frequency component belonging to a predetermined specific frequency range is extracted from a voltage signal detected and the existence/absence of abnormality of a fuel cell system is diagnosed on the basis of the frequency component extracted.

Fuel cell system and diagnosis system for the fuel cell system

This invention provides an electrode for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell which fuel cell contains: a solid polymer electrolyte membrane; electrode layers formed respectively on both faces of the electrolyte membrane; two reinforcing members which cover respective outer surfaces of the electrode layers; and a sealing member which covers, extending from respective end faces to respective end parts of the reinforcing members, whole peripheries of the two reinforcing members, wherein the electrolyte membrane, the electrode layers and the reinforcing members are integrally formed by the sealing member.

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell

The object of this invention is to provide an electrode for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell, a separator therefor, a polymer electrolyte fuel cell and a generating system, which electrode is simplified in structure, have high handling property, can be transferred precisely to a predetermined position, and enables automation of a production process. This invention provides an electrode for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell which electrode contains: a solid polymer electrolyte membrane; electrode layers formed respectively on both faces of the electrolyte membrane; two reinforcing members which cover respective outer surfaces of the electrode layers; and a sealing member which covers, extending from respective end faces to respective end parts of the reinforcing members, whole peripheries of the two reinforcing members, wherein the electrolyte membrane, the electrode layers and the reinforcing members are integrally formed by the sealing member.

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Hitachiota, Japan

Katsunori Nishimura