60 results about "Fuel cells" patented technology

A gas generating process, which is for the continuous production of energy and hydrogen for rocket and other propulsion and is also for the continuous production of hydrogen, utilizes the reaction of metallic materials, particularly aluminum, with organic materials, particularly hydrocarbons provided as jet fuel, and with water or an oxidizer which is predominantly water. In comparison with related reactions, the reaction produces hot gases containing more hydrogen and the products have a lower temperature for the same specific impulse. The process incorporates organic liquids with metallic powders to produce desirable, lower molecular weight exhaust gas products; and the increased hydrogen is desirable for use with a fuel cell and in connection with propulsion of a super-cavitating underwater device. The process is advantageous in that a metal, in powdered form, and a hydrocarbon liquid may be provided together as a slurry or gel for effective metering. The metallic material may also be provided with the organic material in the form of a binder as used in solid propellants, and the organic material and water may be provided together in the form of a water containing liquid monopropellant. The hydrogen containing product gases from the reaction may be further reacted with suitable oxidizers for production of additional energy or steam. The reaction is particularly useful for underwater vehicles where ambient water is available and the reaction products may be used for propulsion.

Provided is a fuel cartridge in which a liquid fuel is not lost in storage, in which a follower is prevented from being deformed and separating even when heavy vibration is exerted onto the fuel cartridge to make it possible to stably supply the liquid fuel directly to a fuel cell main body, in which in particular, even when a volume of a liquid fuel is big and a cartridge diameter is large, the liquid fuel can stably be supplied directly to a fuel cell main body and which is suited to a small-sized fuel cell. It is a fuel cartridge detachably connected with a fuel cell main body and assumes the following constitution; that is, the fuel cartridge is equipped with a fuel-storing vessel 10 for storing a liquid fuel, a fuel discharge part 11 and a follower 20 which seals the liquid fuel and moves as the liquid fuel is consumed at a rear end part of the liquid fuel; and the follower 20 is provided with a follower auxiliary member 21 and a cap member 22 both of which have no fluidity and are insoluble in the liquid fuel.

A method for starting a cold or frozen fuel cell stack as efficiently and quickly as possible in a vehicle application is based upon a state of charge of a first power source such as a high voltage battery. Power flow between the first power source and fuel cell system is coordinated in conjunction with a specific load schedule and parallel control algorithms to minimize the start time required and optimize system warm-up.

A composite flow field element, such as a separator plate used in a high temperature air-cooled fuel cell assembly, preferably includes a metal sheet substrate of non-uniform thickness, such as a mesh, and flexible graphite layers bonded to the metal mesh substrate by an electrically conductive bonding agent.

A fuel cell vehicle is provided with a fuel cell which generates electric power by a reaction of a reaction gas and discharges water, a tank which accumulates water discharged from the fuel cell, a heater which vaporizes water accumulated in the tank, a discharge valve which switches between accumulating and discharging of the water with respect to the tank, an external air temperature sensor which detects an external air temperature, a vehicle speed sensor which detects a vehicle speed, a selector with which the driver selects an operation of the discharge valve between accumulating and discharging of the water with respect to the tank, and an ECU which controls these components and includes a control section and a control data storage section.

A current collector for use in a fuel cell is described and wherein the fuel cell includes an ion exchange membrane having opposite anode and cathode sides, and a current collector is disposed in ohmic electrical contact with each of the anode and cathode sides, and wherein at least one of the current collectors has a surface area which provides substantially effective operational hydration for the ion exchange membrane.

A capacitive liquid level detector for detecting a liquid level of a liquid in a receptacle, the liquid being conductive, the detector comprising: a capacitor with a first plate having a fixed size and being insulated from the liquid, and a second plate being formed by the liquid itself, its size being variable depending on the liquid level inside said receptacle, wherein a thin film dielectric layer is formed on the surface of the first plate and located between the first plate and the second plate, the first plate with the thin film dielectric layer formed on its surface is arranged such that it covers an open part of the outer wall of the receptacle, the first plate with the thin film dielectric layer formed on its surface is attached to the receptacle by sealing means in order to seal the receptacle against liquid leakage.

The invention provides a preparation method of catalyst slurry for fuel cell coating, which includes: successively adding catalyst particles, deionized water, a proton exchange membrane solution, alcohol and a stabilizer into a container, and uniformly mixing and dispersing the component to prepare the catalyst slurry, which is 8-28% in solid content and 50-500 mPa*s in viscosity. The mass percentage of the catalyst particles is 6-21% and the mass percentage of the stabilizer is 0.5-5%. The invention also provides the catalyst slurry for fuel cell coating. The preparation method is simple andavailable, is simple in stirring and dispersion and can shorten the whole preparation time. The catalyst slurry is high in viscosity and solid content and is suitable for preparing a membrane electrode in a coating manner.

A regenerative ion exchange fuel cell having an anode, a metal ion conductor coupled to the anode, an aqueous electrolyte solution positioned adjacent the metal ion conductor, a proton conductor mounted adjacent the aqueous electrolyte solution opposite the metal ion conductor, a cathode positioned adjacent the proton conductor opposite the aqueous electrolyte solution, and a cathode current collector associated with the cathode.

A method and apparatus for use with an oxidizer assembly of a fuel cell system in which the oxidizer assembly has an oxidizing unit for oxidizing anode exhaust gas containing electrolyte particulates and is adapted or conditioned so as to enable the electrolyte particulates to be removable from the assembly and to be removed from the assembly, and wherein the conditioning and removing occur with the oxidizing unit retained in the oxidizer assembly. The fuel cell system is also adapted so that such conditioning and removing occur with the oxidizing assembly retained in the fuel cell system.

The invention provides a preparation method of a paper-graphite-CoPd thin film electrode. The preparation method comprises the following steps: (1) uniformly coating ordinary paper with a mixture of graphite and clay; (2) retaining the paper coated with the graphite for 20-30 min under the voltage of 1.0V, activating the coating graphite, and then performing electro-deposition on Co for 120-150 min under the voltage of -0.8V to obtain a paper-graphite-Co thin film electrode; and (3) enabling the paper-graphite-Co thin film electrode to stand in 0.8 mmol/L<-1> of PbC12 solution for 1-3 min to obtain the paper-graphite-CoPd thin film electrode, namely a graphite coated paper loading CoPd catalyst. According to the method, with pencil coated paper, Co is subjected to electro-deposition on the surface of conducting paper coated with graphite, and then partial Co is replaced with Pd to prepare the graphite coated paper loading CoPd catalyst, so that the electroreduction performance of hydrogen peroxide is improved. The preparation method overcomes the defects of high current collector cost, hydrogen peroxide decomposition and the like, and solves the problem that hydrogen peroxide based full cells are bad in cathode activity.

A carbon catalyst which has high catalytic activity and can achieve high catalyst performance is provided. The carbon catalyst comprises nitrogen. The energy peak area ratio of the first nitrogen atom whose electron in the 1s orbital has a binding energy of 398.5±1.0 eV to the second nitrogen atom whose electron in the 1s orbital has a binding energy of 401±1.0 eV (i.e., the value of (the first nitrogen atom)/(the second nitrogen atom)) of the nitrogen introduced into the catalyst is 1.2 or less.

Provided is a fuel cell system that performs a warm-up operation by reducing a supply of oxidant gas to a fuel cell, the system having: a fuel cell; and a control unit that regulates amounts of oxidant gas and fuel gas supplied to the fuel cell and controls a power-generation state of the fuel cell. During the warm-up operation with a reduced supply of oxidant gas to the fuel cell, the control unit varies a voltage of the fuel cell for a short period of time to obtain current-voltage characteristics which indicate a relationship of an output voltage and an output current of the fuel cell, calculates an effective catalyst area of the fuel cell based on the obtained current-voltage characteristics, and determines whether the warm-up operation of the fuel cell can be stopped or not based on the calculated effective catalyst area.

The invention discloses a method for optimizing fuel cell performance based on frequency and a secant angle. The method comprises the steps that in the working condition of the optimal temperature and humidity at which the total internal resistance Rstack of a PEMFC is minimal, the internal resistance of each galvanic pile segment at the moment is measured, and the ideal high-frequency corner frequency f<optimal> and ideal secant angle alpha<optimal> of different electric current densities are acquired correspondingly; with the f<optimal> and the alpha<optimal> as optimization indexes, focusing on the galvanic piles in any working condition, it is only necessary to emit two frequency signals of the highest frequency (20 KHz) and the ideal corner frequency f<optimal> to monitor the current alpha angle, and through uninterrupted adjustment of relevant control variables, the current alpha angle is changed and tends toward the optimal angle alpha<optimal>, so that the galvanic piles are adjusted to the optimal working state. According to the method, improvement is conducted on traditional EIS methods, and the total internal resistance Rstack is quickly calculated by means of a simultaneous equation solution method; not only is optimization of the galvanic pile output performance of the PEMFC achieved from the internal resistance angle, but also the defects that by means of the traditional EIS methods, the hysteresis is large and real-time detection cannot be conducted are overcome, and operation is simpler and the optimization performance is better compared with traditional methods.

The invention relates to a fuel cell power system monitoring technology. The invention particularly relates to a fuel cell power system platform upper computer monitoring method based on a CAN bus. Anupper computer is connected to a fuel cell controller, a DC/DC and a CAN network of an adjustable load through a CAN bus. A parallel processing multi-thread structure is adopted to receive messagesof the DC/DC, the adjustable load and the fuel cell controller, and display real-time data and curves and stores data of parameters and states of the DC/DC, the adjustable load and a fuel cell engine.The messages are sent to the fuel cell controller and the adjustable load by operating function buttons on an interface of the upper computer and setting control target values of related components,and then manual control, automatic control and forced manual control are conducted on the fuel cell power system platform. According to the method, state monitoring and energy control strategy debugging of the fuel cell power system platform are facilitated, the anti-interference capability is high, and the control performance is stable.

The invention discloses a fuel cell with a cathode flow channel flow distribution design and catalyst layer Pt content gradient distribution. The fuel cell sequentially comprises an anode collector plate, an anode diffusion layer, a membrane electrode with gradient platinum content, a cathode diffusion layer and a cathode collector plate, and is characterized in that the cathode collector plate forming a cathode module of the fuel cell is provided with a main air inlet and at least one flow distribution air inlet so as to introduce air with different flow rates, and the catalyst concentrationof a cathode catalyst layer of the membrane electrode with the gradient platinum content is increased in a gradient manner from the air inlet to the air outlet. The catalyst layer of the membrane electrode fuel cell with the gradient platinum content adopts gradient distribution, so that gas at the outlet of the cell completely reacts, and the effects of uniformly utilizing an active region and reducing the production cost are achieved; by adopting the flow distribution gas inlet, the distribution of the gas in the battery is changed, the diffusion mass transfer of the gas in the cathode sidediffusion layer is improved, and the effect of improving the performance of the battery is achieved.

A fuel cell structure comprises a diffusion layer and/or a catalyst layer which are made of a carbonaceous porous material having a nano-size structure, such as carbon nanowall (CNW). A method of manufacturing the structure is also disclosed. The structure and method simplify the process of manufacturing a fuel cell electrode comprised of an electrode catalyst layer and a gas diffusion layer. The electrical conductivity of the catalyst layer is increased and the diffusion efficiency of the diffusion layer is improved, whereby the electricity generation efficiency of the fuel cell can be improved.

The present invention provides a method of producing a fuel cell separator in which at least a portion of a premolded article composed of a thermosetting resin and a carbon material, or a thermoplastic resin and a carbon material is provided with hydrophilicity, including the steps of: (1) treating the premolded article for enhancing affinity with a solution of a radically polymerizable monomer having a hydrophilic group and/or a functional group which can be converted into a hydrophilic group; (2) coating the solution of the radically polymerizable monomer having a hydrophilic group and/or a functional group which can be converted into a hydrophilic group, on the treated surface; (3) irradiating the treated surface with ionizing radiation; and (4) cleaning the fuel cell separator obtained through steps 1 to 3; wherein steps 1 to 4 are sequentially carried out, or step 1, step 3, step 2, and step 4 are sequentially carried out.