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US 12,015,180 B2Granted
Fuel cell valve configuration
AssigneeHyaxiom, Inc.
InventorJames Kenney
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An illustrative example method of controlling operation of a fuel cell power plant includes opening a pneumatic valve using pneumatic pressure of pressurized fuel cell reactant, allowing the pressurized fuel cell reactant to flow through the pneumatic valve to a cell stack assembly, determining that shutdown of the cell stack assembly is desired, and control a rate that the pneumatic valve closes by controlling a rate of release of the pneumatic pressure.
Claims17
A method of controlling operation of a fuel cell power plant, the method comprising:
- opening a pneumatic valve using pneumatic pressure of pressurized fluid including at least one of a reactant and a purge gas that differs from the reactant;
- allowing the pressurized fluid to flow through the pneumatic valve to a cell stack assembly in response to opening the pneumatic valve;
- determining that shutdown of the cell stack assembly is desired;
- and
- controlling a rate that the pneumatic valve closes by controlling a rate of release of the pneumatic pressure during a shutdown procedure of the cell stack assembly, including selectively reducing the pneumatic pressure to control a rate at which the pneumatic valve changes from an open condition to a closed condition, wherein the rate at which the pneumatic valve changes from the open condition to the closed condition allows at least some of the pressurized fluid including the purge gas to flow through the pneumatic valve during the shutdown procedure.
2 more elements
A method of controlling operation of a fuel cell power plant, the method comprising:
- opening a pneumatic valve using pneumatic pressure of pressurized fluid including at least one of a reactant and a purge gas that differs from the reactant, and the reactant comprises hydrogen;
- communicating the pressurized fluid including the reactant through the pneumatic valve to a plurality of fuel cells of a cell stack assembly in response to opening the pneumatic valve;
- and
- controlling a rate that the pneumatic valve closes by controlling a rate of release of the pneumatic pressure during a shutdown procedure of the cell stack assembly, including selectively reducing the pneumatic pressure to control a rate at which the pneumatic valve changes from an open condition to a closed condition such that at least some of the purge gas flows through the pneumatic valve to purge excess hydrogen from the cell stack assembly during the shutdown procedure.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.