Fuel cell inspection method and manufacturing method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10254347-B2
Application number	US-201514887417-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 20, 2015
Priority date	Oct 27, 2014
Publication date	Apr 9, 2019
Grant date	Apr 9, 2019

Abstract

An inspection method for inspecting a fuel cell, comprising: rising current density at a speed of a designated speed or greater, and judging whether the fuel cell is normal or abnormal by comparing a first voltage value that is the voltage value when the current density reaches a designated current density or greater with the rising step, and a second voltage value which is a judgment standard.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An inspection method for inspecting each cell of a fuel cell stack including a plurality of cells, comprising:
(a) rising current density in the plurality of cells at a speed of a designated speed or greater by controlling a current value flowing in the fuel cell stack, and
(b) judging whether a relationship between a voltage and a current in power generation of each cell is normal or abnormal by comparing a first voltage value that is the voltage value when the current density reaches a designated current density or greater in the step (a), and a second voltage value which is a cell voltage after a designated time has elapsed after completion of the step (a), wherein the designated time is in a range from 5 minutes to 20 minutes,
wherein in the step (b), the fuel cell is judged to be abnormal as a first type of abnormality caused by cationic contamination when a voltage difference which is a difference between the second voltage value and the first voltage value is equal to or greater than a first threshold value.

2. The inspection method according to claim 1 , wherein
in the step (b), the fuel cell is judged to be abnormal as a second type of abnormality that is different from the first type of abnormality when the difference between the second voltage value and the first voltage value is less than the first threshold value, and when the second voltage value is less than a second threshold value.

3. The inspection method according to claim 1 , wherein
in the step (b), the fuel cell is judged to be normal when the voltage difference between the second voltage value and the first voltage value is less than the first threshold value, and when the second voltage value is equal to or greater than a second threshold value.

4. The inspection method according to claim 1 , wherein
the designated speed is 0.5 A/(cm 2 ·sec).

5. The inspection method according to claim 1 , wherein
the current density at the time the step (a) is completed is the current density during maximum output in the usage range of that fuel cell.

6. The inspection method according to claim 1 , wherein
the current density before the step (a) starts is 0.2 A/cm 2 or less.

7. A manufacturing method of a fuel cell stack, wherein
each cell is inspected before being assembled into a stack of cells comprising cells that passed the inspection method according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Usami Sho
• Fujio Koro
• Maeda Masashi

Classifications

• H01M8/04582

  of the individual fuel cell · CPC title

• Y02P70/56

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• G01R31/3631

  Physics · mapped topic

• Y02T90/32

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• H01M8/04671

  of the individual fuel cell · CPC title