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US 12,597,619 B2Granted
Fuel cell system
AssigneeHonda Motor Co., Ltd.
InventorsTomoyuki Inoue, Yuto Nakatani, Ryoji Sakai
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A fuel cell system executes a first valve drive operation by causing a power supply unit to output the first voltage to drive an electric-operated valve to open at a time of starting power generation by a fuel cell stack, and executes a second valve drive operation by causing the power supply unit to output the second voltage to drive the electric-operated valve to open in a case where the electric-operated valve is in a closed state even after execution of the first valve drive operation.
Claims4
A fuel cell system comprising:
- a fuel cell stack configured to generate power by electrochemical reactions between a fuel gas and an oxygen-containing gas;
- an oxygen-containing gas supply flow path configured to supply the oxygen-containing gas to the fuel cell stack;
- an electric-operated valve disposed on the oxygen-containing gas supply flow path;
- a power supply unit configured to output to the electric-operated valve one of a first voltage and a second voltage higher than the first voltage;
- a sensor configured to detect an open or closed state of the electric-operated valve;
- and
- a controller configured to control the power supply unit, wherein the controller executes a first valve drive operation a predetermined number of times to bring the electric-operated valve into the open state by causing the power supply unit to output the first voltage to drive the electric-operated valve to open at a time of starting power generation by the fuel cell stack, and executes a second valve drive operation by causing the power supply unit to output the second voltage to drive the electric-operated valve to open in a case where the electric-operated valve is in a closed state even after the first valve drive operation is executed the predetermined number of times.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.