Method for determining an average cell voltage for fuel cells

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8993185-B2
Application number	US-201414147375-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 3, 2014
Priority date	Sep 14, 2010
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

A system and method for determining a maximum average cell voltage set-point for fuel cells in a fuel cell stack that considers oxidation of the catalyst in the fuel cells. The method includes determining the average cell voltage, the stack current density (I) and an internal resistance (R) of membranes in the fuel cells to calculate an IR corrected average cell voltage. The IR corrected average cell voltage is then used to determine the oxidation state of the catalyst particles using, for example, an empirical model. The oxidation state of the particles is then used to calculate the maximum average cell voltage set-point of the fuel cells, which is used to set the minimum power requested from the fuel cell stack.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for determining an average cell voltage set-point for fuel cells in a fuel cell stack, said method comprising:
determining that the average cell voltage is at or near a first average cell voltage level;
allowing the average cell voltage of the fuel cells to rise to a second average cell voltage level from the first average cell voltage level in a first specified manner;
determining an oxidation state of a catalyst within the fuel cells; and
ca…

Assignees

• Gm Global Tech Operations Inc

Inventors

• Salvador John P
• Greszler Thomas A
• Litteer Brian A

Classifications

• Y02E60/50

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• H01M4/92

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01M8/0432

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01M8/04529

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01M8/04559 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic