Patent application number | Description | Published |
20130224615 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell, a control valve and a controller. The controller controls the control valve to periodically increase and decrease the anode gas pressure downstream of the control valve. The controller executes a shutdown/restart operation of the fuel cell by closing the control valve to stop the anode gas and shutting down power generation of the fuel cell upon receiving a shutdown command, and restarting feeding of the anode gas and restarting the power generation upon a prescribed operation restart condition being met. The controller estimates an anode gas concentration at a location where the anode gas concentration is locally lower within a power generation region of the fuel cell based on a control state of the anode gas when the shutdown command is issued. The controller sets the prescribed operation restart condition for executing the shutdown/restart operation based on the anode gas concentration. | 08-29-2013 |
20130224616 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell, a control valve and a controller. The controller controls the control valve to periodically increase and decrease the anode gas pressure downstream of the control valve. The controller executes a shutdown operation of the fuel cell by closing the control valve to stop the anode gas and shutting down power generation of the fuel cell upon receiving a shutdown command. The controller estimates an anode gas concentration at a location where the anode gas concentration is locally lower within a power generation region of the fuel cell based on a control state of the anode gas at a time the shutdown command is issued. The controller determines whether to permit or prohibit shutting down the power generating operation based on the anode gas concentration. | 08-29-2013 |
20130244127 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system is basically provided with a fuel cell, a pressure adjusting valve, a purge valve and an anode pressure controller. The fuel cell includes an anode that receives an anode gas and a cathode that receives a cathode gas to generate electric power corresponding to a load. The pressure adjusting valve is disposed in a supply path to adjust anode gas pressure to the anode. The purge valve is disposed in a discharging flow path to discharge an anode-off gas containing impurities from the fuel cell. The anode pressure controller is configured to control the pressure adjusting valve to perform a pulsation operation that pulsates the anode gas pressure of the fuel cell. The anode pressure controller decreases a median pressure of the pulsation operation as a wetness level of an electrolyte membrane of the fuel cell stack is determined to become higher. | 09-19-2013 |
20140080025 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell, a control valve and a controller. The fuel cell is configured to receive anode gas and cathode gas to generate electric power. The control valve is configured to control pressure of the anode gas being fed to the fuel cell through an anode flow channel. The controller controls the control valve to periodically increase and decrease the pressure of the anode gas flowing through the anode flow channel in an area downstream of the control valve. The controller sets an anode pressure differential value for the anode gas resulting from periodic increasing and decreasing of the pressure of the anode gas based on a requested fuel cell output. The controller determines a quantity of liquid in the anode flow channel. The controller decreases the anode pressure differential value that was set based on the requested fuel cell output. | 03-20-2014 |
20140093803 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system that generates electric power by supplying anode gas and cathode gas to a fuel cell includes a control valve adapted to control the pressure of the anode gas to be supplied to the fuel cell; a buffer unit adapted to store the anode-off gas to be discharged from the fuel cell; a pulsation operation unit adapted to control the control valve in order to periodically increase and decrease the pressure of the anode gas at a specific width of the pulsation; and a pulsation width correcting unit adapted to correct the width of the pulsation on the basis of the temperature of the buffer unit. | 04-03-2014 |
20140120439 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM & CONTROL METHOD OF FUEL CELL SYSTEM - In a fuel cell system which executes a stop process of stopping an output from a fuel cell when a required power generation amount for the fuel cell is smaller than a predetermined power generation amount and supplies oxidant during a stop process period, fuel gas is intermittently supplied to a fuel electrode at a basic supply interval, which is set in advance and at which carbon dioxide is not generated in an oxidant electrode, during the stop process period. | 05-01-2014 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20140349208 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - In a fuel cell system including a load and a fuel cell stack connected to the load and supplying an anode gas and a cathode gas to the fuel cell stack to generate power according to the load, the fuel cell system includes, a pressure setting unit configured to set a pressure of the anode gas higher when the load is high as compared with when the load is low, a stagnation point determination unit configured to determine, according to a state of power generation of the fuel cell stack, whether or not a nitrogen stagnation point is left in a reaction flow path within the fuel cell stack, and an operation control unit configured to performs an operation while preventing the pressure of the anode gas from being lowered when a required load is lowered in a state where the nitrogen stagnation point is left. | 11-27-2014 |
20150017562 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM AND CONTROL METHOD OF FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a pressure regulating valve configured to control a pressure of an anode gas to be supplied to a fuel cell, a buffer unit configured to store an anode off-gas discharged from the fuel cell, and a purge valve configured to control an amount to be discharged to an outside of the anode off-gas stored in the buffer unit. The pressure of the anode gas periodically increases/decreases by periodically opening/closing the pressure regulating valve. The purge valve is controlled so that a purge flow rate increases more during pressure reduction of the pulsation operation than during pressure increase in pulsation operation control. | 01-15-2015 |
20150030948 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM AND CONTROL METHOD OF FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a pressure regulating valve for controlling a pressure of an anode gas, a purge valve for controlling a discharge amount of an anode off-gas, the purge valve being configured to change an opening area thereof at least on two stages, a pulsation operation control means configured to control the pressure regulating valve so that the pressure of the anode gas in a fuel cell when a load is high becomes higher than when the load is low, and so that the pressure of the anode gas is periodically increased and decreased at a predetermined load, and a purge valve control means configured to increase the opening area of the purge valve used during a descending transition operation so that the opening area becomes larger than the opening area used during other operations. | 01-29-2015 |
20150037700 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM AND CONTROL METHOD OF FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a pressure regulating valve configured to control a pressure of an anode gas to be supplied to a fuel cell, a pulsation operation control means configured to control such that the anode gas pressure becomes higher as a load becomes larger, and the anode gas pressure is pulsated at the same load, and an anode gas pressure limiting means configured to limit the anode gas pressure by a pressure higher than the anode gas pressure according to the load when the load lowers. | 02-05-2015 |
20150044582 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system supplies a fuel cell with an anode gas and a cathode gas, thereby generating electric power. The fuel cell system includes: a control valve for controlling a pressure of the anode gas in the fuel cell; a buffer part for accumulating an anode off-gas discharged from the fuel cell; an off-gas discharge passage for connecting the fuel cell and the buffer part with each other; a purge passage connected to the off-gas discharge passage; a purge valve; a purge unit configured to open the purge valve to discharge the gas in the buffer part to an outside of the fuel cell system; and a pressure control unit configured to decrease the pressure of the anode gas in the fuel cell from a first predetermined pressure to a second predetermined pressure, thereby controlling the gas in the buffer part to flow backward to the fuel cell side. | 02-12-2015 |
20150050528 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a control valve configured to control a pressure of the anode gas supplied to the fuel cell, the power controller electrically connected to the fuel cell and configured to control an output of the fuel cell based on a power generation required amount for the fuel cell, a pulsation operation control unit configured to increase a pressure of the anode gas downstream of the control valve in accordance with the power generation required amount for the fuel cell and to increase and decrease the pressure of the anode gas periodically, and an output limiting unit configured to limit an output of the fuel cell set by the power controller when the power generation required amount for the fuel cell decreases. | 02-19-2015 |
20150056531 | FUEL CELL SYSTEM - A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell stack configured to generate power according to a load, a fuel tank configured to store fuel gas, a pressure regulating valve configured to regulate a pressure of the fuel gas supplied from the fuel tank to the fuel cell stack, a purge valve configured to purge the fuel gas discharged from the fuel cell stack and a controller for controlling the system. The controller includes a pulsating unit configured to cause a fuel gas pressure of the fuel cell stack to pulsate, and a pressure increasing rate setting unit configured to set a pressure increasing rate of the pulsation of the fuel gas pressure according to an operating state. | 02-26-2015 |