Emergency power fuel cell with evaporative cooling
AssigneeHamilton Sundstrand Corporation
InventorRobert M. Darling
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure provides for fuel cell systems, assemblies and methods. More particularly, the present disclosure provides for emergency power fuel cell systems, assemblies and methods (e.g., for aircraft or the like), with the fuel cells having indirect evaporative cooling. The present disclosure provides that a liquid-air heat exchanger that exchanges heat carried by hot coolant from a fuel cell with ambient air can be replaced by a heat exchanger that transfers heat from the fuel cell to grey water (e.g., grey water that is stored on an airplane or the like) that is allowed to evaporate. As such, this substantially eliminates the coolant fans, and can result in a smaller and/or lighter heat exchanger.
Claims16
A fuel cell assembly comprising:
- an anode that is in fluid communication with a fuel;
- a cathode that is in fluid communication with an oxidizer;
- and
- wherein heat from the anode or the cathode is passed to a coolant to create hot coolant, and the hot coolant is passed through or adjacent to an amount of grey water in a grey water tank to cool the coolant via evaporative cooling of the grey water;
- and
- wherein the grey water is stored or produced on an aircraft;
- wherein the fuel cell assembly is configured to cool the hot coolant without a radiator or a fan.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.