Purge control for fuel cell

Abstract

Abstract Impurities accumulated within a fuel cell from the reactants are flushed from the cell by periodic operation of valves which permit reactant flow at a sufficiently high rate to purge, i.e., clean the cell plates. Operation of the valves is governed by the ampere-hour output of the fuel cell. The voltage developed by the flow of fuel cell load current through a shunt controls the frequency of output pulses from a voltage-to-frequency converter, and the pulses are supplied to frequency dividing means including a binary tape counter which controls the purge valves. The submultiple of the input pulse frequency to the counter is selectively variable to adjust the number of amperehours between purges, and the frequency dividing means includes a monostable multivibrator whose period is selectively variable to adjust the duration of each purge.

Inventors

• 👤 John Baude

Bibliographic Details