The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 22, 1998
Filed:
Jan. 23, 1997
Tan-Ping Chen, Walnut Creek, CA (US);
Bechtel Corporation, San Francisco, CA (US);
Abstract
A fuel cell assembly (2) includes a vessel (4) containing a gas-permeable, porous housing (16). A fuel cell stack (14), including cells (42) and interconnect plates (44), is contained within the porous housing. Each interconnect plate has oxidant and fuel sides (64, 60) adjacent to the cathode (58) and anode (62) of adjacent cells. Fuel (68) is supplied to the fuel side at positions (78) midway between the center (82) and the periphery (80) of the fuel side. Reaction products (90) are withdrawn from the center of the fuel side. Flue gas (100) is withdrawn from the center (98) of the oxidant side. Air is preheated as it passes through the porous housing to the fuel cell stack. The preheated air combusts residual fuel (110) flowing radially outwardly from the periphery of the stack to further heat the air to the stack operating temperature to eliminate any external preheating of the air. Corrugations (66, 67) on the interconnect plates act as flow deflectors and form the electrical contact surfaces for adjacent cells. The fuel cell stack is preferably oriented horizontally and is allowed to thermally expand and contract in a substantially free manner, to minimize damage to the cells, until the fuel cell stack is close to an operating temperature.