Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., Ltd.

Kohji Yuasa

Yoshitaka Dansui

Futoshi Tanigawa

Munehisa Ikoma

Yukihiro Okada

Fumio Kato

Takashi Akiyama

Isao Matsumoto

Hideyuki Ueda

Satoshi Shibutani

Susumu Kikuyama

Akiko Miyahara

Hiroshi Kawano

Tatsuhiko Suzuki

Osamu Takahashi

Xianglong Wang

Takashi Ebihara

Kenji Suzuki

Yasushi Nakamura

Nobuhiko Hojo

Hideo Kaiya

Shinsuke Fukuda

Aoi Tanaka

Soryu Nakayama

Norihisa Mino

Kazuhito Hatoh

Hiroshi Yoshizawa

Satoru Fujii

Kohei Suzuki

Taisuke Yamamoto

Yoichi Izumi

Masato Hosaka

Masumi Katsumoto

Hideki Kasahara

Haruya Nakai

Akihiro Maeda

Yuu Inatomi

Yasuko Ito

Yasutaka Noguchi

Takashi Hino

Yasuhiro Nitta

Kaori Gomikawa

Kazutaka Ikeda

Tohru Kawakatsu

Fumio Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd Iwahashi

To prevent the flooding phenomenon at the cathode in a unit cell where the temperature is relatively low or the supply of air is small, a fuel cell stack includes at least three flat unit cells stacked with separators interposed therebetween, the unit cells comprising an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte membrane sandwiched therebetween, and having an oxidant channel formed on the surface of the separator adjacent to the cathode, and the anode and the cathode comprising a catalyst layer attached to the electrolyte membrane and a diffusion layer, wherein the cross-sectional area of the inlet side of the oxidant channel, the area of the cathode catalyst layer, the thickness of the electrolyte membrane or the amount of a water repellent contained in the combination of the cathode and the oxidant channel is the largest in at least one of the unit cells at the ends of the stack.

Fuel cell stack

Provided is a power supply unit for supplying power to an electric apparatus, comprising an indicator unit, an introduction-detecting unit for detecting introduction of the electric apparatus into a vehicle for transportation of the electric apparatus, a voltage-detecting unit for detecting the voltage of the power source, a memory unit for storing a first voltage and a second voltage lower than the first voltage, a judgment unit for determining whether the voltage of the power source detected by the voltage-detecting unit is higher than the first voltage and a forced discharge unit. The forced discharge unit is configured to cause the indicator unit to notify if the electric apparatus is in a state prohibiting introduction into the vehicle and forcibly discharge the power source.

Power supply unit and electric apparatus

A fuel cell system includes: a fuel cell including an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte interposed between the anode and the cathode; and a purifying apparatus including a catalyst layer that purifies an effluent discharged from the anode. The purifying apparatus has a porous sheet including the catalyst layer and two flow paths disposed on both sides thereof. One of the flow paths has an inlet into which the effluent discharged from the anode is introduced, and the other flow path has an inlet into which air is introduced and an outlet. The effluent discharged from the anode is passed through the porous sheet for purification and then discharged from the outlet.

Fuel cell system with purifying apparatus

The electrolyte membrane of the present invention is an electrolyte membrane () having ionic conductivity that includes a base material () and organic molecules having ion exchange groups, wherein the organic molecules are chemically bonded to the surface of the base material () to form an organic layer (), and ions are conducted via the ion exchange groups in the organic layer (). By providing this type of electrolyte membrane, it is possible to obtain an electrolyte membrane having ionic conductivity whose configuration is different to that of a conventional electrolyte membrane.

Electrolyte membrane, membrane electrode assembly using this and fuel cell

A fuel cell system includes: a dilute tank that stores an aqueous solution of liquid fuel and supplies the solution to the anode of a fuel cell; a fuel tank connected to the dilute tank via a first controlling section; a water tank connected to the dilute tank via a second controlling section; and controlling means including a current detector which measures the amount of the fuel consumed by the fuel cell from the amount of power generation. The controlling means controls the first controlling section based on the measured amount of fuel consumption and further includes correcting means for measuring a component of a gas discharged from the cathode, calculating the amount of the fuel which has crossed over from the anode to the cathode based on the measured component, and correcting the measured amount of fuel consumption based on the calculated amount of fuel crossover.

Fuel cell system having fuel and water controlling means

In order to prevent the crossover of an organic fuel such as methanol in a fuel cell and to exhibit excellent electricity generation characteristics without impairing the utilization efficiency of the fuel, at least either of (1) a discontinuous catalyst layer being formed on a surface of an anode catalyst layer and having a higher density (existence probability) of platinum type catalyst than the anode catalyst layer and (2) an electrolyte polymer layer is formed at the interface between the anode catalyst layer and a polymer electrolyte membrane.

Fuel cell and production method thereof

In order to provide a nickel-metal hydride storage battery capable of preventing the formation of a minute chemical short circuit between the positive and negative electrodes while exhibiting an excellent self-discharge resistance, a nickel positive electrode plate is formed by filling an active material mainly composed of a hydroxide of nickel into a porous sintered nickel substrate, followed by further forming a layer of a manganese compound containing manganese with a valence of 2 or more on the surface thereof, and an alkaline storage battery is configured by using this nickel positive electrode plate.

Nickel positive electrode plate and alkaline storage battery

The hydrogen storage alloy electrode comprises: a conductive core material; and an active material layer which contains a hydrogen storage alloy powder and is carried on said core material, and the alloy powder has any shape selected from the group consisting of spherical shapes, substantially spherical shapes and oval shapes. The core material comprises: a conductive sheet; and fibrous or columnar sintered nickel pieces bonded to the surface of the conductive sheet. Alternatively, the active material layer comprises: an active material layer A which contains a hydrogen storage alloy powder A with a mean particle size 'a' and is carried on said core material; and an active material layer B which contains a hydrogen storage alloy powder B with a mean particle size 'b' and is carried on said active material layer A (wherein a&#x3c;b). Alternatively, the active material layer further contains a crushed alloy powder having on the surface thereof at least one selected from the group consisting of nickel and cobalt. The use of such electrode provides an alkaline storage battery excellent in both discharge characteristics and cycle life.

Alkaline storage battery and hydrogen storage alloy electrode used therefor

It is difficult to realize a small fuel cell capable of being installed in mobile device by merely downsizing a conventional fuel cell without changing the configuration. The present invention provides a small fuel cell employing a polymer electrolyte thin film, by using a semiconductor process. A polymer electrolyte thin film fuel cell in accordance with the present invention comprises: a substrate having a plurality of openings; an electrolyte membrane-electrode assembly formed on the substrate so as to cover each of the openings, the assembly comprising a first catalyst electrode layer, a hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane and a second catalyst electrode layer which are formed successively; and fuel and oxidant supply means for supplying a fuel or an oxidant gas to the first catalyst electrode layer through the openings, and an oxidant gas or a fuel to the second catalyst electrode layer.

Polymer electrolyte thin film fuel cell and method of operating the same

In a nickel-metal hydride storage battery comprising: an electrode plate assembly including current collectors on the top and bottom portions; an alkaline electrolyte; and a battery case having a substantially rectangular parallelepiped part for accommodating the electrode plate assembly and the alkaline electrolyte, the capacity degradation due to deep discharge and reverse charge inherent to a nickel-metal hydride storage battery is suppressed by setting the amount of the alkaline electrolyte at 70 to 90% of the volume V of the residual space in the battery represented by the equation (1): V=S&#xb7;h&#x2212;(V+V+V+V) (1), where S is the cross sectional area of the inner space of the substantially rectangular parallelepiped part, h is the height of the electrode plate assembly, Vis the true volume of the positive electrode plate, Vis the true volume of the negative electrode plate, Vis the true volume of the separator, and Vis the volume of the two current collectors.

Nickel-metal hydride storage battery and assembly of the same

The paste type positive electrode of the present invention contains a first active material and a second active material. The first active material comprises X parts by weight of particulate nickel hydroxide with aX/100 parts by weight of cobalt oxyhydroxide carried thereon. The second active material comprises Y parts by weight of particulate nickel oxyhydroxide, of which an oxidation number of nickel is &#x3b1;, with bY/100 parts by weight of cobalt oxyhydroxide carried thereon. Here, all the following relations are satisfied: (1) 2.5&#x2266;&#x3b1;&#x3c;3.0, (2) 0.01&#x2266;(aX/100+bY/100)/(X+Y)&#x2266;0.20, (3) 0&#x3c;b&#x2266;a&#x2266;10 or 0=b&#x3c;a&#x2266;10, and (4) 2.1&#x2266;(2X+&#x3b1;Y)/(X+Y)&#x3c;2.2.

Paste type positive electrode for alkaline storage battery, and nickel-metal hydride storage battery

Nickel positive electrode plate and akaline storage battery

An alkaline storage battery which is excellent in charge and discharge cycle life characteristics and high-rate discharge characteristics is provided by constructing it using an electrode made of an MmNi type hydrogen-absorbing alloy powders having modified surface. The alkaline storage battery comprises a negative electrode made using a hydrogen-absorbing alloy in the form of powders comprising at least one rare earth element, nickel and at least one transition metal in which the surface portion of the alloy has nickel in metallic state exposed at the surface, pores positioned between the nickel and the nickel, and a nickel-rich layer present on the alloy surface contacting with the pores, a positive electrode made using a metal oxide, a separator, and an alkaline electrolyte.

Hydrogen-absorbing alloy for battery, method for producing the same, and alkaline storage battery using the same

The present invention provides an alkaline storage battery excellent in high-rate charge and discharge characteristics, and a hydrogen-absorbing alloy electrode suitable for the battery and a method for producing the same. The hydrogen-absorbing alloy is preferably produced by wet grinding in water a hydrogen-absorbing alloy having at least one rare earth element, nickel and at least one transition metal element, treating the resulting alloy powders in an aqueous alkali solution, and then consecutively treating the powders in an acidic aqueous solution. The hydrogen-absorbing alloy powders have a structure of a nickel-condensed layer being exposed and have many pores.

Alkaline storage battery, hydrogen-absorbing alloy electrode and method for producing the same

By using a thin film-formed positive electrode, and negative electrode and a film separator, the capacity density of the electrode plate can be improved and at the same time a nickel-hydrogen secondary battery with a higher capacity can be easily obtained; as a result a nickel-hydrogen secondary battery with a higher capacity density can be provided.

Nickel-hydrogen secondary battery and process for producing electrode therefor

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Hirakata, Japan

Kohji Yuasa