Fuel cell
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorSatoshi Morishita
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A fuel cell has unit cells wherein gas discharged from an oxidizer electrode in one unit cell and gas discharged from a fuel electrode in other adjacent unit cell are merged in and charged through a discharge flow passage provided outside these unit cells. The discharge flow passage is shared by the oxidizer electrode in the one unit cell and the fuel electrode in the other unit cell. A flow of the gas discharged from the oxidizer electrode is utilized to efficiently exhaust the gas discharged from the fuel electrode.
Claims20
A fuel cell having a plurality of multilayered unit cells, each of the unit cells comprising:
- a fuel chamber to which a liquid fuel is supplied;
- a fuel electrode which is adjacent to the fuel chamber and to which the liquid fuel is supplied from the fuel chamber and by which cation and electrons are generated from the liquid fuel;
- an electrolyte membrane which is placed so as to face the fuel electrode and through which cations derived from the fuel electrode permeate;
- an oxidizer chamber to which an oxidizer is supplied;
- and
- an oxidizer electrode which is adjacent to the oxidizer chamber and to which the oxidizer is supplied from the oxidizer chamber and which is placed so as to face the electrolyte membrane and which yields a reaction between the oxidizer and the cations permeated through the electrolyte membrane, wherein
- gas generated from a fuel electrode in one unit cell among the unit cells is discharged into one fuel chamber adjacent to the fuel electrode,
- gas generated from an oxidizer electrode of another unit cell adjacent to the one unit cell and discharged into one oxidizer chamber adjacent to the oxidizer electrode,
- the gas generated from the fuel electrode and the gas generated from the oxidizer electrode are merged with each other to be discharged from the multilayered unit cells.
A fuel cell having a plurality of unit cells arrayed into a plane state, each of the unit cells comprising:
- a fuel electrode to which a liquid fuel is supplied and by which cations and electrons are generated from the liquid fuel;
- an electrolyte membrane which is placed so as to face the fuel electrode and through which cations derived from the fuel electrode permeate;
- and
- an oxidizer electrode to which an oxidizer is supplied and which is placed so as to face the electrolyte membrane and which yields a reaction between the oxidizer and the cations permeated through the electrolyte membrane, wherein
- the fuel electrode, the electrolyte membrane and the oxidizer electrode are continuously integrated between neighboring unit cells.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.