Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Shunsuke Itami

Atsushi Kamachi

Hitoshi Okanobori

Masaaki Sakano

Nagayuki Kanaoka

Masaru Oda

Ryohei Ishimaru

A fuel cell is formed by sandwiching a membrane electrode assembly between a first separator and a second separator. The membrane electrode assembly includes a cathode, an anode, and a solid polymer electrolyte membrane interposed between the cathode and the anode. In the membrane electrode assembly, a catalyst area of an electrode catalyst layer of the cathode and an electrode catalyst layer of the anode terminates at a position spaced upwardly from lower ends of an oxygen-containing gas flow field and a fuel gas flow field.

Solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell

A thermoelectric conversion apparatus has an evaporator for heating a working medium in liquid-phase to evaporate the working medium, an electric generator for forming a concentration cell for electric power generation when it is supplied with a reactive gas and the working medium evaporated by the evaporator, and a gas-liquid separator for being supplied with a mixed gas of the working medium and a cathode off-gas discharged from the electric generator and separating the mixed gas into the working medium and the reactive gas. The thermoelectric conversion apparatus also has an anode supply passage for supplying the reactive gas separated by the gas-liquid separator to the electric generator, and a cathode supply passage for supplying the working medium separated by the gas-liquid separator through the evaporator to the electric generator.

Thermoelectric conversion apparatus

An energy utilization apparatus includes: an endothermic reaction device for performing dehydrogenation endothermic reaction of an organic compound; a compression device for pressurizing a first gas containing hydrogen and a dehydrogenated organic compound, and a non-reacted organic compound which are produced in the endothermic reaction device; a distillation device for distilling under pressure the first gas which is pressurized by the compression device, so as to separate the hydrogen and the dehydrogenated organic compound from the liquefied non-reacted organic compound; a vaporization device for vaporizing the liquefied non-reacted organic compound by pressure-relieving; and an expansion energy recovery device for obtaining power of the compression device by using expansion force generated by the vaporization.

Energy utilization apparatus and energy utilization method

A fuel cell includes a laminated, plate-shaped membrane electrode assembly and first and second separator plates sandwiching the membrane electrode assembly. The membrane electrode assembly includes a polymer electrolyte membrane; first and second electrode layers sandwiching the polymer electrolyte membrane; and first and second gas-diffusion layers disposed on an outer side of the electrode layers, respectively. The first and second gas-diffusion layers are made of an air-permeable metallic material. An arithmetic average roughness Ra of a surface of the air-permeable metallic material on the side contacting one of the electrode layers is in a range of 0.1 &#x3bc;m&#x2266;Ra&#x2266;1.0 &#x3bc;m.

Fuel cell

A thermoelectric conversion apparatus having a high thermoelectric conversion efficiency comprises: a dehydrogenation reactor for generating hydrogen and acetone by an endothermic dehydrogenation reaction of isopropyl alcohol in the presence of a dehydrogenation catalyst and heat from a heat source, and a fuel cell which generates electricity by an electrochemical reaction of the hydrogen and the acetone produced by the dehydrogenation reactor. A module is constructed by integrating the dehydrogenation reactor and an electricity generating layer constituting the fuel cell into a stack.

Growing community of inventors

Saitama, Japan

Shunsuke Itami