Fuel cell system
AssigneeNissan Motor Co., Ltd.
InventorYouichi Yagi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Residual hydrogen can be consumed until the output voltage substantially becomes 0 volts and miniaturization and weight saving of the fuel cell system can be achieved without carrying a substance such as an inert gas which does not directly relate to a fuel cell electrical generation. By cutting fuel supply to a fuel cell 1 at a time of a system halt and connecting the fuel cell output with the discharging resistor 10 of a low ohmic value in a water tank 7, and by switching the connection to a discharging resistor 11 of a high ohmic value in which merely a minute current flows in that state by means of a power switching device 9 when the fuel cell output becomes a fixed value or below, discharging is performed until the output voltage becomes substantially 0 volts without causing damage to the fuel cell to consume residual hydrogen.
Claims6
A fuel cell system in which fuel supply to a fuel cell is cut when the system is halted, comprising
- a first discharging resistor selectively connected with an output of the fuel cell and capable of consuming a high current,
- a second discharging resistor selectively connected with the output of the fuel cell and consuming a minute current, and
- a switching mechanism selectively connecting the first discharging resistor and the second discharging resistor to the output of the fuel cell, wherein
- the switching mechanism selects and connects the first discharging resistor when the fuel cell system is halted and selects and connects the second discharging resistor when the output of the fuel cell becomes less than a fixed value thereby consume residual hydrogen inside a fuel cell stack.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.