固体高分子形燃料電池の航空・宇宙用途での利用について

抄録

The polymer electrolyte fuel cell is one of the energy supply system for aerospace application. In aerospace, the pressure around the fuel cell becomes lower than atmospheric pressure (vacuum environment), and the heat control of PEFC becomes more critical issue. To control the cell temperature, we embedded water cooling in fuel cell system, and analyzed the cell temperature under the atmospheric and vacuum environment. Results suggested that adequate flow rate of the water cooling can control the cell temperature even under vacuum condition and improve performance of the cell. Furthermore, right waight based on simplification is imposed in aerospace application. Recovering the produced water from cell and regenerating hydrogen and oxygen gas from the water are also required. Operating PEFC without humidifier and with re-circulation of supplied gas aiming for the recovering are responsible for these specific needs. Experiment clarified that operation without humidifier operation can work in the same performance as that with humidifier under room temperature. It also found that operation with the re-circulation does not degrade the performance once flow rate of the recirculation is controlled to be enough high so that gas velocity in channel is high and reduce concentration overvoltage.