Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Tomoaki Uchiyama

Masato Nakajima

Masayuki Ito

Manabu Kato

Tsuyoshi Maruo

Hideyuki Kumei

Shuya Kawahara

A fuel cell unit includes: a fuel cell module including a fuel cell stack including: a stacked body in which unit cells are stacked; a pair of end plates sandwiching the stacked body in a stacking direction; a facing member facing an outer surface of the stacked body extending along the stacking direction; and first and second restriction members arranged between the facing member and the stacked body, and restricting a position of the stacked body in a direction perpendicular to the stacking direction by contacting with the outer surface; and fixing members fixing the fuel cell module to a fixed member.

Fuel cell unit and fuel cell vehicle

A fuel cell has an electrolyte membrane of 5 to 10 &#x3bc;m in thickness. A control device for this fuel cell comprises: a controller configured to control an amount of power generation by the fuel cell according to a required amount of electric power; and a power generation reducer configured to reduce the amount of power generation by the fuel cell at a humidity of an electrolyte membrane of 95 to 98% RH to be lower than the amount of power generation at the humidity of the electrolyte membrane of lower than 95% RH.

Control device of fuel cell, fuel cell system and control method of fuel cell

The object is to suppress degradation of the durability of an electrolyte membrane caused by deformation by expansion and contraction of the electrolyte membrane. A controllercalculates a humidity P of an electrolyte membranebased on a cell resistance value (step S) and determines whether the humidity P of the electrolyte membraneis less than a humidity threshold A (step S). When the humidity P is less than the humidity threshold A, the controllerdetermines that a dimensional change rate of the electrolyte membrane is not greater than a predetermined value and performs a process of increasing the humidity of the electrolyte membrane(step S). The predetermined value is a dimensional change rate that is unlikely to have damage by drying stress. This enables the electrolyte membraneto be humidified before the electrolyte membraneis excessively dried and thereby suppresses tensile stress from being applied to the electrolyte membraneby drying of the electrolyte membrane. Accordingly this suppresses cracking and thinning of the electrolyte membraneand improves the durability of the electrolyte membrane

Fuel cell system

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell; a cathode inflow water amount determining portion that determines a cathode inflow water amount after activation of the fuel cell; an obtaining portion that obtains a pore total volume of the cathode side catalyst layer; an operating condition determining portion that determines, based on the determined cathode inflow water amount and the obtained pore total volume, an operating condition of the fuel cell that includes a current value of current that flows through the fuel cell and an upper limit value of a period of time for which the current flows, for bringing the cathode inflow water amount within a range that is equal to or less than the pore total volume; and an adjusting portion that adjusts the current value and the period of time for which current of the current value flows, such that the determined operating condition is realized.

Growing community of inventors

Sunto-gun, Japan

Tomoaki Uchiyama