Fuel cell stack assembly
AssigneeCeres Intellectual Property Company Limited
InventorsLee Rees, Stephen Phillip, Euan Freeman, Andrew Ballard, Tomasz Domanski, Eren Erturk, Alan Robertson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is concerned with an improved fuel cell stack assembly (10) comprising a metal base plate (20) on which is mounted at least one fuel cell stack (30) and a metal end plate (40), each stack comprising at least one fuel cell stack layer (50) that comprises at least one fuel cell (101, 102) and at least one electrically insulating compression gasket (110), wherein a skirt (130) is attached to the base and end plates enclosing the stack and is under tension therebetween so as to maintain a compressive force through the stack, thereby obviating the need for tie-bars.
Claims16
A metal supported solid oxide fuel cell stack assembly comprising:
- (i) a metal base plate;
- (ii) an at least one fuel cell stack mounted on the base plate;
- and
- (iii) a metal end plate;
- each at least one fuel cell stack arranged mounted between said base plate and said end plate, and comprising at least one fuel cell stack layer, each at least one fuel cell stack layer comprising at least one fuel cell and at least one electrically insulating compression gasket,
- characterised in that:
- a skirt is attached to and between the base plate and the end plate to enclose the at least one fuel cell stack and is under tension to and between the base plate and the end plate to maintain a compressive force through the at least one fuel cell stack;
- and
- at least one electrically insulating gasket is sandwiched between an outer side surface of said at least one fuel cell stack and an adjacent inner surface of said skirt, the insulating gasket preventing oxidant flow around the outside of the fuel cell stack.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.