Clearedge Power Corporation

Zakiul Kabir

Yang Song

Craig E Evans

Donald L Maricle

Lin Qiu

Qimin Ming

George W Hawkins

A method is provided for reducing degradation in a fuel cell assembly, including at least one fuel cell with a PBI membrane, during standby, operation. The method may include electrochemically consuming an oxidant from a cathode coupled to the PBI membrane in response to a disconnection of an external load and supplying fuel to remove or electrochemically consume any back-diffused oxidant to the associated fuel cell sufficient to replace or consume the back-diffused oxidant while the external load is removed, and/or also may include controlling a standby temperature of the fuel cell. In this way, it may be possible to avoid increased cell voltage decay associated with degradation of the PBI in a simple and cost effective system.

System and method for operating a high temperature fuel cell as a back-up power supply with reduced performance decay

The air-cooled thermal management of a fuel cell stack is disclosed. One disclosed embodiment comprises a cooling plate apparatus for an air-cooled fuel cell stack, where the cooling plate comprises a body configured to receive heat from one or more fuel cells in thermal communication with the body, and airflow channels formed in the body and configured to allow a flow of a cooling air to pass across the body. An insulating structure is disposed in the airflow channels, wherein the insulating structure has decreasing thickness from a cooling air inlet toward a cooling air outlet.

Air-cooled thermal management for a fuel cell stack

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Hillsboro, OR, United States of America

Zakiul Kabir