Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Other

Sanraku-ocean Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Masao Yamamoto

Tsuyoshi Uemura

Kenji Nakao

Hirofumi Kubota

Shinya Kosako

Noriko Naito

Seiji Nishiyama

Akihiko Yoshida

Makoto Uchida

Osamu Sakai

Eiichi Yasumoto

Yasushi Sugawara

Junji Morita

Junji Niikura

Hideaki Mochizuki

Hiroshi Takahara

Kazuo Inoue

Masataka Ozeki

Hisaaki Gyoten

Hiroshi Kimura

Hirofumi Wakemoto

Yoshihiro Hori

Junji Nakajima

Youichiro Sugimori

Atushi Shibayama

Hamao Umezawa

Tomio Takeuchi

Kazuhito Hatoh

Hideo Ohara

Yoshikazu Tanaka

Tetsuya Ueda

Teruhisa Kanbara

Akinari Nakamura

Tomoyuki Ishikura

Shinji Miyauchi

Yasuo Takebe

Rokuro Okamoto

Nobuhiro Hase

Kuniaki Tatsuta

Terumaru Harada

Masayo Sugou

Kohki Kiyoshima

Jun Oe

Hiroaki Kan

Shinnya Kosako

Kazuhiko Nishii

There are included a gas-liquid separator () that performs gas-liquid separation on fuel exhaust gas exhausted from a fuel cell (), a combustion section () that combusts hydrogen in the separated fuel exhaust gas, a heat exchanger () that performs heat exchange on combustion exhaust gas generated by the combustion, to condense moisture in the combustion exhaust gas and obtain combustion exhaust gas condensed water, and a degasifier () that removes carbon dioxide gas from the combustion exhaust gas condensed water and the fuel exhaust gas condensed water separated in the gas-liquid separator (), and the degassed condensed water is stored in condensed water tank ().

Fuel cell system

A fuel cell system () comprising: a fuel cell () configured to generate electric power using an oxidizing gas and a fuel gas; a recovered water tank () configured to store water recovered from an exhaust gas discharged from the fuel cell; a water storage tank () configured to store water used as cooling water for cooling the fuel cell; a water feed flow path (g) through which the water stored in the recovered water tank is supplied to the water storage tank; a pump () configured to force water to flow from the recovered water tank to the water storage tank within the water feed flow path; a water purifier () configured to purify the water forcibly flowed by said pump in the water feed flow path by means of a built-in TOC absorber () before the water is supplied to the water storage tank; and a controller (), wherein the controller controls the pump so as to operate in a stop period of the fuel cell system such that water moves in the water feed flow path.

Fuel cell system and operation method thereof

It has heretofore been practiced upon the occurrence of abnormalities on the equipment to make tentative conditioned operation disregarding abnormalities on the assumption that the abnormalities shall be coped with by servicemen. Thus, troubles having insignificant contents of abnormality could not be readily coped with by a simple method. There are provided a fuel cell, a fuel gas supplying unit, an oxidizer gas supplying unit, a state detecting unit of detecting the temperature of the fuel gas supplying unit, an operation controlling unit of detecting abnormalities of predetermined functions performed by the fuel gas supplying unit utilizing the results detected by the state detecting unit and performing operation control in an operation mode corresponding to the contents of abnormalities, and an operation mode switching unit of switching to an operation mode corresponding to the contents of abnormalities.

Systems for controlling operation of a fuel cell electricity generating system responsive to detection of abnormalities

The present invention provides a polymer electrolyte fuel cell having an increased reaction area by forming a gas channel, a proton channel and an electron channel very close to each other inside a catalyst layer. This polymer electrolyte fuel cell includes a hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane; and a pair of electrodes having catalyst layers sandwiching the hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte membrane between them and gas diffusion layers in contact with the catalyst layers, in which the catalyst layer of at least one of the electrodes comprises carbon particles supporting a noble metal catalyst, and the carbon particles include at least two kinds of carbon particles adsorbing a hydrogen ion conductive polymer electrolyte in mutually different dispersed states.

Method for manufacturing polymer electrolyte fuel cell

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.

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 dispersion type liquid crystal display element having liquid crystal droplets dispersed and held in a continuous matrix phase including polymer compound or a three dimensional network form of matrix including polymer compound dispersed between a pair of substrates, each having an inside electrode. The liquid crystal droplets are in all areas but for an area in the vicinity of the interfaces between the substrates. The liquid crystal droplets are ellipsoid of revolution forms of substantially the same size.

Macromolecular dispersion type liquid crystal display element and method of manufacturing the same

A polymer dispersion type liquid crystal (PDLC) display element comprising a complex of polymers and liquid crystal droplets held between a pair of substrates. The liquid crystal droplets are deformed into a compressed structure of their being contracted in a cell gap direction and an amount of deformation of the liquid crystal droplets is set to be in range in which a phenomenon of liquid crystal molecules rising up in the cell gap direction is not caused by excluded volume effects of the liquid crystals. The amount of deformation of the liquid crystal droplets, is set to be in range in which the phenomenon of liquid crystal molecules rising up in the cell gap direction is not caused by excluded volume effects of the liquid crystals can provide an increased tendency of the liquid crystal molecules to align in parallel to a phase boundary of the substrates. The DPLC display element having excellent threshold characteristics and scattering characteristics and high display characteristics can be achieved.

Polymer dispersion type liquid crystal display element, producing method therefor and apparatus for use in the producing method

Lubricating grease composition

A liquid crystal display device of the invention comprises a transparent substrate a transparent electrode formed on the inner surface of the transparent substrate an alignment layer formed over the transparent electrode a composite formed over the alignment layer and a transparent electrode on the upper surface of the composite The composite comprises a transparent polymer and a liquid crystal droplet The liquid crystal droplet is configured in a substantially hemispherical shape such that a bottom surface of the droplet is in contact with the alignment layer and the remaining surface excluding the bottom surface bulges towards an upper surface of the composite The polymer constitutes the other surface of the composite such that the polymer covers the hemispherical liquid crystal droplets Thus, the invention achieves a liquid crystal display device in which one of the pair of substrates is eliminated and thereby the weight of the device is significantly reduced.

Light control element, optical device, and electrical device, and method of producing thereof

A polymer dispersion type liquid crystal display element according to the invention is structured such that a complex of polymer and liquid crystal droplets is held between a pair of substrates. The liquid crystal droplets are deformed into a compressed structure of their being contracted in a cell gap direction and an amount of deformation of the liquid crystal droplets is set to be in range in which a phenomenon of liquid crystal molecules rising up in the cell gap direction is not caused by excluded volume effects of the liquid crystals. This construction that the amount of deformation of the liquid crystal droplets is set to be in range in which the phenomenon of liquid crystal molecules rising up in the cell gap direction is not caused by excluded volume effects of the liquid crystals can provide an increased tendency of the liquid crystal molecules to align in parallel to a phase boundary of the substrates. As a result of this, the polymer dispersion type liquid crystal display element having excellent threshold characteristics and scattering characteristics and high display characteristics can be achieved.

A liquid crystal display device of the invention comprises a transparent substrate a transparent electrode formed on the inner surface of the transparent substrate an alignment layer formed over the transparent electrode a composite formed over the alignment layer and a transparent electrode on the upper surface of the composite The composite comprises a transparent polymer and a liquid crystal droplet The liquid crystal droplet is configured in a substantially hemispherical shape such that a bottom surface of the droplet is in contact with the alignment layer and the remaining surface excluding the bottom surface bulges towards an upper surface of the composite . The polymer constitutes the other surface of the composite such that the polymer covers the hemispherical liquid crystal droplets Thus, the invention achieves a liquid crystal display device in which one of the pair of substrates is eliminated and thereby the weight of the device is significantly reduced.

Light control element, optical device, and electrical device having lightweight, and method of producing thereof

A method of making a polymer dispersion type liquid crystal display element including a phase separation step. The method calls for placing a liquid crystal polymer precursor compatible solution having a liquid crystal and a polymer precursor between a pair of substrates, each having an inside electrode, and irradiating a substrate surface with ultraviolet. The radiation causes a phase separation of the liquid crystal and the polymer precursor as well as polymerization and curing of the precursor. The method forms a polymer dispersion type liquid crystal having liquid crystal droplets dispersed and held in a continuous matrix phase or a three-dimensional network matrix. During the phase separation step, the irradiation time is controlled from the beginning of irradiation to the completion of phase separation to influence any of the degree of polymerization of the precursor in the solution, the rate of phase separation, and the generating density of the separated liquid crystal nuclei so that the dispersed liquid crystal droplets have even particle sizes.

Growing community of inventors

Kishiwada, Japan

Masao Yamamoto