Panasonic Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Soichi Shibata

Hiroki Kusakabe

Takayuki Urata

Kazuhito Hatoh

Hideo Ohara

Yasushi Sugawara

Takahiro Umeda

Toshihiro Matsumoto

Shinsuke Takeguchi

Junji Morita

Eiichi Yasumoto

Nobuhiro Hase

Takeshi Tomizawa

Yoichiro Tsuji

Makoto Uchida

Masataka Ozeki

Akinari Nakamura

Norihiko Kawabata

Shinya Kosako

Yoshikazu Tanaka

Hideo Kasahara

Katsuzou Kokawa

Takashi Morimoto

Akihiko Yoshida

Susumu Kobayashi

Osamu Sakai

Yasuo Takebe

Tsutomu Kawashima

Yoshiki Nagao

Shigeyuki Unoki

Toru Sukawa

Susumu Hatano

Atsushi Nakayama

Yusuke Ikeshima

Yukinobu Kitano

Tatsuo Nagasaki

Masatoshi Teranishi

Yoshikazu Ip Development Center Tanaka

Yoshikazu c/o Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd Tanaka

In a solid polymer fuel cell, destabilization of a voltage when an output state is changed is suppressed, and flow of a corrosion current through a cooling liquid in a cooling liquid manifold is reduced. The fuel cell is constructed by laminating a plurality of fuel battery cells, each including an MEA, a pair of separators, a frame that surrounds the periphery of the MEA, an anode, and a cathode, and a cooling liquid manifold that is formed by the frame. A flow channel of the cooling liquid manifold has a constant flow channel cross-sectional area, and a flow channel length of the cooling liquid manifold, which is included in one of the fuel battery cells, along a flow channel direction is longer than the thickness of the one fuel battery cell in a stacked direction.

Solid polymer fuel cell

A fuel cell cogeneration system of the present invention includes: a cell (); a fuel gas discharging manifold () which is formed to extend in a thickness direction of the cell () and through which an anode off gas unconsumed in an anode (A) flows; an oxidizing gas discharging manifold () which is formed to extend in the thickness direction of the cell () and through which a cathode off gas unconsumed in a cathode (B) flows; and a cooling medium discharging manifold () which is formed to extend in the thickness direction of the cell () and through which an off cooling medium having recovered heat from the cell () flows, and the fuel gas discharging manifold () and/or the oxidizing gas discharging manifold () are formed between the cooling medium discharging manifold () and a separator end closest to the cooling medium discharging manifold ().

Fuel cell stack and fuel cell cogeneration system including the same

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell; a fuel gas supplying unit supplying the fuel gas into the fuel cell on the anode side thereof; an oxidizing agent gas supplying unit supplying the oxidizing agent gas into the fuel cell on the cathode side thereof; a raw material gas supplying unit supplying the raw material gas into the fuel cell; and a controlling unit controlling the supply of the fuel gas, the oxidizing agent gas and the raw material gas. After switching the output of electric power or the fuel cell off, the fuel gas supplying unit suspends the supply of the fuel gas, the oxidizing agent gas supplying unit suspends the supply of the oxidizing agent gas and the raw material gas supplying unit supplies the raw material gas into the fuel cell to purge the fuel cell on the cathode side.

Fuel cell system and method for stopping operation of fuel cell system

A cell stack of a fuel cell comprises a cell stack body including a cell stack structure including plural cells stacked together; an elastic member disposed at an end of the cell stack structure in a direction in which the plural cells are stacked, and a pair of end plates sandwiching the cell stack structure and the elastic member, and a fastener band extending to surround the cell stack body and to cover a pair of end surfaces and a pair of opposing side surfaces of the cell stack body, the fastener band including a first band engagement portion and a second band engagement portion at both end portions thereof, respectively, and the cell stack body is fastened by the fastener band by direct or indirect engagement between the first band engagement portion and the second band engagement portion.

Cell stack of fuel cell and method of fastening cell stack of fuel cell

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell of the present invention includes: plate-shaped cells () each having a pair of plate-shaped separators () and () and a membrane-electrode assembly () disposed between the separators () and (); a cell stack () configured by stacking and fastening the cells (); and a covering member () covering a peripheral surface of the cell stack (), and voltage measuring terminal insertion holes () used to measure the voltages of the cells () are formed on the covering member () so as to be located at positions corresponding to the separators () and () of the cells ().

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell and method for measuring voltages of cells in polymer electrolyte fuel cell

An object of the present invention is to provide a fuel cell including a reaction gas supply path which makes it difficult to cause water condensation in a region near an end plate. A fuel cell of the present invention comprises a cell stackhaving a reaction gas passageinside thereof and having on one end surface thereof a reaction gas supply inletfrom which a reaction gas is supplied to the reaction gas passage, a jointconnecting the reaction gas supply inletto an external pipe P for supplying the reaction gas, plate-shaped end memberswhich are disposed on one end surface of the cell stackand have through-holesinto which the jointis inserted so as not to contact inner wall surfaces thereof, and a closing memberfor substantially closing a space formed between the jointand the inner wall surfaces of the through-holes

Fuel cell

The invention provides a fuel cell comprising one or more cells () stacked therein, each of the cells () including:

Fuel cell having improved contact between separators and gas diffusion layers

A fuel cell includes: cells (), each of which includes an electrolyte layer-electrode stack assembly () having a electrolyte layer () and a pair of gas diffusion electrodes () sandwiching a portion of the electrolyte layer () which portion is located on an inner side of a peripheral portion of the electrolyte layer (), an annular peripheral member disposed at the peripheral portion of the electrolyte layer (), a pair of electrically conductive separators (A,B) which sandwich the electrolyte layer-electrode stack assembly () and the peripheral member, and damage detecting wires (); and a fuel cell stack () formed by stacking the cells (), wherein: the damage detecting wires () are formed on components constituting the cell () other than the electrolyte layer-electrode stack assembly (); and the damage detecting wires () are connected to one another to form an open circuit by stacking the cells ().

Fuel-cell and fuel cell system including the same

A fuel cell system comprising: a fuel cellhaving a fuel gas passageD and an oxidizing gas passageE; a fuel gas feeder; an oxidizing gas feeder; a fuel gas exhaust passage; an oxidizing gas exhaust passage; a test gas feederconfigured to feed a test gas to either the fuel gas passageD or the oxidizing gas passageE; a flow rate detectorconfigured to detect the flow rate of the test gas; a first passage blocking device; and a controller

Fuel cell system

In a fuel cell system, during the state where the fuel cell system is not generating an electric power, a fuel gas passage and an oxidizing gas passage are closed, and an inert gas supply device () supplies an inert gas to an anode space () which is substantially isolated from outside, the anode space including the closed fuel gas passage and a space connected to the closed fuel gas passage, while an air supply device () supplies air to a cathode space () which is substantially isolated from outside, the cathode space including the closed oxidizing gas passage and a space connected to the closed oxidizing gas passage. With this, the fuel cell system is capable of achieving high energy efficiency and of surely preventing degradation of electrodes during the state where the fuel cell system is not generating the electric power, irrespective of repeated start-up and stop.

Problems of acceleration of drying of electrolyte membrane and local reaction, etc. can be properly coped with to attain the stabilization of performance of fuel cell. There are provided a fuel cellwhich generates electric power from a fuel gas and an oxidizing agent gas, a fuel gas feed pipeand a first switch valveas fuel gas supplying unit which supplies the said fuel gas into the said fuel cell on the anode side thereof, an oxidizing gas supplying pipeand a second cut-off valveas oxidizing agent gas supplying unit which supplies the said oxidizing agent into the said fuel cell on the cathode side thereof, a raw material gas supplying pipeand a third switch valveas raw material gas supplying unit which supplies raw material of the said fuel gas into the fuel cell and a control portionwhich controls the supply of the said fuel gas, the supply of the said oxidizing agent and the supply of the said raw material and the control portioncontrols during the starting of electricity generation of the fuel cellsuch that the said raw material gas supplying unit purges the fuel cellat least on the cathode side thereof with the said raw material gas before the oxidizing agent gas supplying unit and the fuel gas supplying unit supply the fuel gas and the said oxidizing agent gas into the fuel cell, respectively.

Fuel cell system, method of starting fuel cell system

To provide a polymer electrolyte fuel cell in which a reaction gas can be utilized efficiently for an electrode reaction even when a gap is formed between an anode-side sealing member and the end face of an anode and between a cathode-side sealing member and the end face of a cathode, and sufficient power generation performance can be ensured with a simple constitution. At least one of the anode-side sealing member and the cathode-side sealing member of the fuel cell includes an annular body, and at least one deformable protruding portion provided on the inner surface of the annular body.

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell and fuel cell sealing member for the same

The invention relates to a separator plate for use in a fuel cell and to a fuel cell. The separator plate has: a passage groove group including a plurality of gas passage groovesformed so as to extend in serpentine form; and a communicating grooveconfigured to provide fluid communication between adjacent portions of the gas passage grooves. Various separator plates have heretofore been disclosed in public by many documents and the blockage of the gas passage grooves caused by condensed water droplets formed therein is deemed to be properly prevented. However, the inventors think that those separator plates have a critical oversight in the behavior of a gas-liquid two phase fluid including a reaction gas and condensed water. That is, the condensed water is likely to concentrate in the vicinity of the gas passage grooves located in the downstream side of such separator plates and therefore these separator plates are liable to blockage. The invention intends to overcome the above problem by making the communicating grooveshallower than the gas passage grooves.

Separator plate and fuel cell

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell that is subjected to a purge operation of supplying an inert gas to an anode and/or cathode upon shut-down of the fuel cell. The differential pressure &#x394;P is defined as &#x394;P=Pa&#x2212;Pc where Pa is the pressure in an inlet-side flow path leading to the anode and Pc is the pressure in an inlet-side flow path leading to the cathode. The differential pressure during the purge operation is controlled such that the differential pressure during operation &#x394;Po and the differential pressure during the purge operation &#x394;Pp satisfy the relation: 0&#x3c;&#x394;Po&#xd7;&#x394;Pp. This makes it possible to reduce the stress exerted on a solid electrolyte membrane and improve the long-term reliability of the fuel cell.

Fuel cell system with differential pressure control

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell is provided with a conductive separator having one or more gas flow channels for supplying and exhausting a gas to and from an electrode of the fuel cell. The gas flow channels are connected to and in fluid communication with an inlet manifold on the separator. The cell also includes a gas supply connection in fluid communication with the inlet manifold of the separator. Water accumulation in the cell can be advantageously reduced by configuring the connections to the inlet manifold so that the lowermost part of any gas flow channel connections with the inlet manifold is above the uppermost part of the gas supply connection to the inlet manifold.

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Soichi Shibata