Fuel cell system
AssigneeToyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsSeiichi TANAKA, Masashi TOIDA, Hiroyuki TSUNEKAWA, Shun MATSUMOTO, Tsuyoshi MARUO
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Abstract
Provided is a fuel cell system that can effectively suppress clogging of a pipe due to freezing of water in a fuel gas supply system thereof without the need for halting the operation of the fuel cells, and thus is highly reliable. When possible freezing of water is detected or presumed to be present downstream of an injector, the amount of a fuel gas to be supplied from a circulation pump that is disposed in a circulation channel is relatively increased compared to the amount of the fuel gas to be supplied from the injector.
Claims5
A fuel cell system comprising:
- a fuel cell;
- a fuel gas supply channel adapted to supply a fuel gas to the fuel cell;
- a fuel supply device adapted to supply the fuel gas to the fuel cell through the fuel gas supply channel;
- a circulation channel adapted to circulate a fuel off-gas discharged from the fuel cell to the fuel gas supply channel;
- a circulation pump disposed in the circulation channel and adapted to pressure-feed the fuel off-gas to the fuel gas supply channel so as to be circulated therein;
- and
- a control unit adapted to control operation of at least one of the fuel supply device or the circulation pump,
- wherein when freezing of water is presumed to be present downstream of the fuel supply device, the control unit relatively increases a proportion of an amount of the fuel gas to be supplied from the circulation pump to an amount of the fuel gas to be supplied from the fuel supply device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.