JPS585978A - Fuel cell - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To unify a quantity of gas to be fed in each cell for improving performance by dividing an interior of a manifold into a plurality of chambers like partition plates so as to independently feed gas in and discharge it from each cell. CONSTITUTION:An interior of a manifold 5 is provided with partition plates 8 and 9 to divide the interior of the manifold for making chambers, whereby the higher chamber is given the smaller capacity and each chamber is independently supplied with gas through gas feeding pipes 10, 11 and 12 so that a quantitative difference of gas flow due to a pressure difference inside of each chamber is minimized thus to effect even feeding of gas in each cell composing a laminated cell 1. Accordingly, the voltage generated in each cell is unified to improve the performance of a fuel cell. When the interior of the manifold is provided with a large number of partition plates in such way the higher layer is given the narrower space, the more uniformity of quantitative gas flow to each cell of the laminated cell 1 can be achieved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a fuel cell, and particularly to the structure of a manifold for supplying and exhausting gas to a cell main body.

FIG. 1 is a partial vertical sectional view showing the structure of a conventional fuel cell. Reference numeral 1 denotes a laminated cell in which a plurality of unit cells each having an electrolyte arranged between electrodes are laminated, and this laminated cell 1 is tightened by an upper clamping fitting 2 and a lower clamping fitting 3 arranged at the upper and lower parts. Fixed n1 installed on pace 4 f. Further, a manifold 5 for supplying fuel gas' or air is attached to the side surface of the laminated cell 1 via a gasket (not shown). A pipe 6 is attached to the lower part of the manifold 5. Furthermore, the laminated cell 1 and the manifold 5
etc. are stored in the tank 7. Note that the cross section on one side (not shown) has a similar structure.

In a fuel cell having such a configuration, as the height of the stacked cell 1 increases, the gas pressure distribution within the manifold 5 becomes as shown in FIG. 2. That is, the gas pressure at the upper part of the stacked cell 1 will decrease, and the amount of gas supplied to the lower cells constituting the stacked cell 1 will be different from the amount of gas supplied to the upper cells. . Therefore, the flow of gas in the upper cells is reduced, making it difficult to generate uniform voltage in each cell, resulting in a decrease in the performance of the fuel cell.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks, an object of the present invention is to provide a fuel cell with improved performance by equalizing the amount of gas supplied to each cell.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide an arbitrary number of partition plates in the manifold, and to arrange the partition plates so that the volume of the chamber formed by the partition plates and the inner surface of the manifold becomes smaller toward the top. This is achieved by connecting piping for supplying or discharging gas to each of the chambers.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a partial vertical sectional view showing an embodiment of the fuel cell according to the present invention. However, the same components as those in FIG. 1 are indicated using the same reference numerals.

A manifold 5 for supplying gas to the cells through a gasket (not shown) is attached to the side surface of a stacked cell 1 formed by stacking a plurality of unit cells, and the structure is almost the same as that of the conventional example. There is. In this embodiment, horizontally arranged fC partition plates 8 and 9 are provided in the manifold 5.
The arrangement interval of this partition plate is 11.12.2.
As shown in Figure 2, the distance between the partitions becomes narrower as you move towards the second position. Gas supply pipes 10, 11 and 12 branched from the pipe 6 are connected to the three chambers arranged in this way, formed by the partition plates 8 and 9 and the inside of the manifold 5. .

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. Gas is supplied to the stacked cell 1 independently through gas supply pipes 10, 11, and 12 provided in the manifold 5 to each chamber n71. Moreover, since the volume of the chamber located at the top of the laminated cell l is small and the volume of the chamber located at the bottom is large, the flow rate difference due to the pressure difference in each chamber becomes small.
Product 1 - Gas is evenly supplied to each cell making up cell 1.

In a non-embodiment, partition plates 8 and 9 are installed in the manifold 5.
By partitioning the interior of the manifold into chambers with smaller volumes as they move upward, and by supplying gas independently to these chambers through gas supply piping 10, 11, and 12, the pressure in each chamber can be reduced. This has the effect of reducing the difference in gas flow rate due to the difference and uniformly supplying gas to each cell constituting the stacked cell 1. Therefore, the voltage generated by each cell becomes equal, which has the effect of improving the performance of the fuel cell.

It should be noted that if the number of partition plates is increased so that the intervals become narrower as they move upward into the manifold, it is possible to further equalize the gas flow rate to each cell of the laminated cell I.

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the interior of the manifold is divided into a plurality of chambers by partition plates, and gas is supplied or discharged to each chamber independently, thereby reducing the amount of gas supplied to each cell. It is possible to provide a fuel cell with uniformly improved performance.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a partial vertical sectional view showing the structure of a conventional fuel cell, Fig. 2 is a gas pressure distribution diagram according to the height of the stacked cells in the Nibold shown in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a diagram of the gas pressure distribution according to the present invention. FIG. 1 is a partial longitudinal sectional view showing an example of a fuel cell. 1. Laminated cell, 2. Upper clamping fitting, 3..-Lower benefit-U, 5-manifold, 6.. Piping, 8.
．． ．． 9... Partition plate, 10, 11.12... Supply piping. Vt diagram

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A fuel cell in which a manifold for flowing fuel and oxidizer gas is attached to the side surface of a stacked cell in which a plurality of unit cells formed by disposing an electrolyte between electrodes are stacked with separators interposed therebetween. A plurality of partition plates are provided on the inside, and the partition plates are arranged so that the volume of each chamber in the manifold divided by the partition plates becomes smaller as the distance from the supply side increases, and the gas is supplied to each of the chambers. Supply-E7'
iC is a fuel cell characterized by being connected to discharge piping.