Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Yuuichi Sato

Nobuyasu Negishi

Hideyuki Oozu

Hirofumi Kan

Yukinori Akamoto

Yuichi Yoshida

Genta Oomichi

Kenichi Takahashi

Hiroyuki Hasebe

Daisuke Watanabe

Hirotaka Hayashida

Koichi Kawamura

Asako Sato

Hidenori Suzuki

Yukitaka Yoshida

Takashi Shimoyamada

Yoshiyuki Nitta

Kenji Shigihara

Takashi Omagari

Kengou Kurata

A fuel cell () includes an electromotive unit () having a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) (), a fuel storage unit () storing a liquid fuel, and a fuel supply mechanism () supplying the fuel from the fuel storage unit () to a fuel electrode () of the membrane electrode assembly (). The membrane electrode assembly () has a gas vent hole () provided in a manner to penetrate through at least an electrolyte membrane () to let a gas component generated on a side of the fuel electrode () escape to a side of an air electrode ().

Fuel cell

The present invention relates to a fuel cell including: a membrane electrode assembly () having a fuel electrode (), an air electrode (), and an electrolyte membrane () sandwiched therebetween; and a fuel storage unit () storing a liquid fuel. The fuel cell is capable of continuously generating electricity for long hours only by being replenished with a fuel, and therefore, attempts have been made to miniaturize the fuel cell to use it as a power source of portable electronic devices. When the membrane electrode assembly and the fuel storage unit in the fuel cell are connected via a flow path, a fuel supply state becomes uneven depending on the shape and the like of the flow path even though a supply amount of the fuel can be adjusted, which causes a problem such as a decrease in an output of the fuel cell. The present invention solves the aforethe problem by providing, in the fuel cell, a fuel distributing mechanism () which supplies the fuel to a plurality of places of the fuel electrode, and connecting the fuel distributing mechanism and the fuel storage unit via the flow path ().

A control device includes: memory diagnosis means for setting a power-on status when an electric power is turned on and diagnosing an ECC memory; restarting means for restarting the control device when the memory diagnosis means detects a correctable error of the ECC memory during the power-on status of the ECC memory; and operation processing means for resetting the power-on status and performing a normal operation when the memory diagnosis means does not detect a correctable error of the ECC memory, while performing the normal operation when a correctable error of the ECC memory is detected because of the restart of the control device by soft reset after the reset of the power-on status but when the control device is not in the power-on status.

Control device

The invention provides a nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery excellent in output characteristic such as large current discharge or pulse discharge in ordinary use, high in safety by preventing destruction due to suppression of current in an abnormality such as external short-circuiting, and further large in capacity. The nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery comprises an external can opened at one end thereof, an electrode assembly contained in the external can, and comprising a negative electrode, a separator and a positive electrode, a nonaqueous electrolyte contained in the external can, and a sealing lid group tightly sealed at the opening of the external can by way of an insulating member, wherein the sealing lid group includes an intact plate-like PTC element having a fragile portion to be easily broken due to elevation of internal pressure by gas generation.

Nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Yuuichi Sato