Humidification of Reactant Streams in Fuel Cells

Fuel system includes a fuel cell, hydrogen-rich fuel source, and oxygen-rich fuel source. Humidifiers are placed between the sources and their associated inlets and have a reactive flow path connecting each source and associated inlet with an energy-containing medium flow path and a source of liquid...

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Hauptverfasser: GREGORY GERALD HUGHES, MARK GERARD VOSS, JOSEPH ROGER STEVENSON, ALAN PAUL MEISSNER, LIPING CAO
Format: Patent
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Fuel system includes a fuel cell, hydrogen-rich fuel source, and oxygen-rich fuel source. Humidifiers are placed between the sources and their associated inlets and have a reactive flow path connecting each source and associated inlet with an energy-containing medium flow path and a source of liquid aqueous material for vaporization in the energy-containing medium flow path. A fuel cell system comprises: (a) a fuel cell (10) having a hydrogen-rich fuel inlet (14), an oxygen-rich oxidant inlet (12), an anode residual gas outlet (18) and a cathode gas outlet (16); (b) a hydrogen-rich fuel source (30) connected to the fuel inlet; (c) an oxygen-rich gas source for the oxidant inlet; and (d) at least one humidifier (52, 70, 54, 72) between the associated sources and inlets and having a reactive flow path (56, 58, 74, 76) connecting the particular source and associated inlet in a heat-exchange relation with a flow path for the energy containing medium (60, 61, 62, 64, 78, 80, 82, 84) and a source of aqueous material connected to the reactive flow path for introducing the aqueous material to be vaporized within it. The energy-containing medium flow path is connected to one of the outlets to receive a heated liquid to provide the heat for vaporizing the liquid aqueous material by a heat exchange between the flow paths. Independent claims are given for variants of the fuel cell system using similar principles.