CN219716906U

CN219716906U - Humidity-controllable humidification system and fuel cell system

Info

Publication number: CN219716906U
Application number: CN202321190732.2U
Authority: CN
Inventors: 纪光霁
Original assignee: Cummins New Energy Power Shanghai Co ltd
Current assignee: Cummins New Energy Power Shanghai Co ltd
Priority date: 2023-05-17
Filing date: 2023-05-17
Publication date: 2023-09-19
Anticipated expiration: 2033-05-17

Abstract

The utility model provides a humidity-controllable humidification system and a fuel cell system, wherein the humidification system comprises a membrane humidifier, a first bypass valve and a first mixing chamber: the inlet end of the first bypass valve receives air, the main outlet end of the first bypass valve is communicated with the air inlet end of the membrane humidifier, and the bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve is in bypass communication with the second inlet of the first mixing chamber; the first inlet of the first mixing chamber is connected to the air outlet end of the membrane humidifier, the second inlet of the first mixing chamber is connected to the bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve, and the outlet end of the first mixing chamber is connected to the galvanic pile. By using the system, the air humidity input into the cathode of the electric pile can be controlled to be maintained at a reasonable level.

Description

Humidity-controllable humidification system and fuel cell system

Technical Field

The utility model belongs to the field of fuel cells, and particularly relates to a humidity-controllable humidifying system and a fuel cell system.

Background

This section is intended to provide a background or context to the embodiments of the utility model that are recited in the claims. The description herein is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.

At present, only an external humidifier is adopted to carry out humidity adjustment on cathode air of a galvanic pile of the fuel cell, and the humidity control effect is often selected by the design of the external humidifier. Once the humidifier is selected, the humidity adjustment depends on the hardware performance of the humidifier, and the humidity cannot be actively increased or decreased under partial working conditions.

Therefore, how to realize the air humidity adjustment of the input electric pile is a problem to be solved.

Disclosure of Invention

Aiming at the problems in the prior art, a humidity-controllable humidifying system and a fuel cell system are provided, and the technical problem that the humidity cannot be actively increased or decreased under partial working conditions can be solved by using the system.

In a first aspect, the present utility model provides a humidity-controllable humidification system comprising a membrane humidifier, further comprising a first bypass valve and a first mixing chamber: the inlet end of the first bypass valve receives air, the main outlet end of the first bypass valve is communicated with the air inlet end of the membrane humidifier, and the bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve is communicated with the second inlet of the first mixing chamber; the first inlet of the first mixing chamber is connected to the air outlet end of the membrane humidifier, the second inlet thereof is connected to the bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve, and the outlet end thereof is connected to the electric pile.

The utility model has the beneficial effects that: by arranging a first bypass valve and a first mixing chamber at the air inlet end and the air outlet end of the membrane humidifier respectively, and enabling the first bypass valve to be in bypass communication with the first mixing chamber, a humidity-controllable humidifying system is actually formed on an air inlet passage, and it is understood that when the bypass amount of the first bypass valve is increased, the air humidity input into the electric pile is correspondingly reduced; when the bypass amount of the first bypass valve is reduced, the air humidity input to the stack is correspondingly increased. Therefore, under part of the operation conditions, the humidification system of the embodiment can actively increase/decrease the air humidity, thereby improving the durability and reliability of the fuel cell.

In one embodiment, the first bypass valve further has a first control port configured to regulate the bypass amount of the bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve.

In one embodiment, the system further comprises: a second bypass valve and a second mixing chamber; the inlet end of the second bypass valve receives the waste gas output by the galvanic pile, the main outlet end is connected to the waste gas inlet end of the membrane humidifier, and the bypass outlet end is communicated to the second inlet of the second mixing chamber; the first inlet of the second mixing chamber is connected to the exhaust gas outlet end of the membrane humidifier, the second inlet thereof is connected to the bypass outlet end of the second bypass valve, and the outlet end thereof is connected to the exhaust gas outlet.

In one embodiment, the second bypass valve further has a second control port configured to regulate the bypass amount of the bypass outlet end of the second bypass valve.

In one embodiment, the first bypass valve and/or the second bypass valve are electrically controlled bypass valves.

In one embodiment, the system further comprises: and a current density detection device electrically connected to the first control port of the first bypass valve and/or the second control port of the second bypass valve.

In one embodiment, the membrane humidifier is a gas/gas humidifier.

In a second aspect, the present utility model also provides a fuel cell system comprising a humidification system as described in the first aspect.

Other advantages of the present utility model will be explained in more detail in connection with the following description and accompanying drawings.

It should be understood that the foregoing description is only an overview of the technical solutions of the present utility model, so that the technical means of the present utility model may be more clearly understood and implemented in accordance with the content of the specification. The following specific embodiments of the present utility model are described in order to make the above and other objects, features and advantages of the present utility model more comprehensible.

Drawings

The advantages and benefits described herein, as well as other advantages and benefits, will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments. The drawings are only for purposes of illustrating exemplary embodiments and are not to be construed as limiting the utility model. Also, like reference numerals are used to designate like parts throughout the figures. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a humidity-controlled humidification system according to an embodiment of the present utility model;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a humidity-controlled humidification system according to another embodiment of the present utility model.

In the drawings, the same or corresponding reference numerals indicate the same or corresponding parts.

Detailed Description

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. While exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are shown in the drawings, it should be understood that the present disclosure may be embodied in various forms and should not be limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.

In describing embodiments of the present utility model, it will be understood that terms, such as "comprises" or "comprising," and the like, are intended to indicate the presence of features, numbers, steps, acts, components, portions, or combinations thereof disclosed in the specification, and are not intended to exclude the possibility of one or more other features, numbers, steps, acts, components, portions, or combinations thereof being present.

Unless otherwise indicated, "/" means or, e.g., A/B may represent A or B; "and/or" herein is merely an association relationship describing an association object, and means that three relationships may exist, for example, a and/or B may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone.

The terms "first," "second," and the like are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, a feature defining "a first", "a second", etc. may explicitly or implicitly include one or more such feature. In the description of the embodiments of the present utility model, unless otherwise indicated, the meaning of "a plurality" is two or more.

Also, the terms such as "upper," "lower," "left," "right," "middle," and "a" and the like recited in the present specification are merely for descriptive purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of the utility model, but are intended to provide relative positional changes or modifications without materially altering the technical context in which the utility model may be practiced.

The utility model will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings in connection with embodiments.

As shown in FIG. 1, one embodiment of the present utility model provides a humidity-controllable humidification system comprising

The embodiment of the utility model provides a humidity-controllable humidifying system, which at least comprises:

a membrane humidifier 10, a first bypass valve 21 and a first mixing chamber 22.

The inlet end 211 of the first bypass valve 21 receives dry air from the air inlet of the system, its main outlet end 212 communicates to the air inlet end 11 of the membrane humidifier 10, and its bypass outlet end 213 communicates through the first bypass 23 to the second inlet 222 of the first mixing chamber 22; by controlling the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21 itself, the capacity of the dry air to be output to the first bypass 23 can be adjusted.

The air inlet port 11 of the membrane humidifier 10 receives the dry air delivered from the first bypass valve 21, humidifies the dry air, and outputs the humidified dry air to the first inlet 221 of the first mixing chamber 22 through the air outlet port 12 thereof.

The membrane humidifier is preferably a gas/gas humidifier, i.e., a membrane humidifier that utilizes the humidity of the wet exhaust gas output by the stack to humidify the dry air input to the stack.

The first inlet 221 of the first mixing chamber 22 is connected to the air outlet port 12 of the membrane humidifier 10 to receive humidified air, and the second inlet 222 thereof is connected to the bypass outlet port 213 of the first bypass valve 21 to receive non-humidified air and mix the two before being output to the cathode inlet 41 of the stack 40 through the outlet port 223 thereof.

It will be appreciated that the membrane humidifier 10, the first bypass valve 21 and the first mixing chamber 22 described above in fact constitute a humidity controlled humidification system on the air inlet path. When the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21 is not zero, a part of the non-humidified air flows into the second inlet 222 of the first mixing chamber 22, and at this time, the humid air exiting the membrane humidifier 10 is mixed with a part of the non-humidified air in the first mixing chamber, thereby reducing the outlet air humidity of the first mixing chamber 22.

In short, the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21 increases, and the amount of air entering the membrane humidifier 10 decreases accordingly, enabling the humidity of air input to the stack to decrease; conversely, when the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21 is reduced, the amount of air entering the membrane humidifier 10 is correspondingly increased, and the humidity of air input to the stack can be raised. In this way, control and regulation of the stack air humidity can be achieved.

Therefore, under partial operation conditions, the humidification system of the embodiment can actively reduce the air humidity to avoid flooding caused by over humidification of the electric pile, thereby improving the durability and the reliability of the fuel cell.

Referring to fig. 1, the first bypass valve 21 may also have a first control port 214 configured to regulate the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21. The first control port 214 may be a mechanical control port or an electrical control port, enabling the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21 to be adjusted between 0% and 100%.

The humidity-controllable humidification system of the present embodiment can also be applied to process control of low-temperature cold start, for example, by setting the bypass amount of the first bypass valve 21 to 100%, the whole humidifier allows dry air with a higher temperature to enter the stack, heating the internal components of the stack, and improving the low-temperature cold start.

Preferably, the first bypass valve 21 is an electrically controlled bypass valve, which is electrically connected to a first control signal port of the humidification system.

As shown in fig. 2, another embodiment of the present utility model provides a schematic structural diagram of another humidity-controllable humidification system, which includes:

a membrane humidifier 10, a first bypass valve 21, a first mixing chamber 22, a second bypass valve 31, and a second mixing chamber 32;

referring to fig. 2, the arrangement of the first bypass valve 21 and the first mixing chamber 22 is identical or highly similar to the embodiment of fig. 1 described above, and will not be repeated here.

The inlet end 311 of the second bypass valve 31 receives the exhaust gas, which is wet exhaust gas, output from the cathode outlet 41 of the stack 40, and the main outlet end 312 is connected to the exhaust gas inlet end 13 of the membrane humidifier 10, and the bypass outlet end 313 is connected to the second inlet 322 of the second mixing chamber 32 through the second bypass 33. By controlling the bypass amount of the second bypass valve 31 itself, the capacity of the wet exhaust gas output to the second bypass 33 can be adjusted.

The exhaust gas inlet end 13 of the membrane humidifier 10 receives the wet exhaust gas transferred from the second bypass valve 31, humidifies the dry air in the air passage using the wet exhaust gas, and outputs the utilized exhaust gas to the first inlet 321 of the second mixing chamber 32 through the exhaust gas outlet end 14 thereof.

The first inlet 321 of the second mixing chamber 32 is connected to the exhaust gas outlet 14 of the membrane humidifier 10, the second inlet 322 thereof is connected to the bypass outlet 313 of the second bypass valve 31, and the outlet 323 of the second mixing chamber 32 is connected to the exhaust gas outlet.

It will be appreciated that the first bypass valve 21, the first mixing chamber 22, the second bypass valve 31, the membrane humidifier 10 and the second mixing chamber 32 described above constitute a humidity-controllable humidification system on the air inlet passage and the exhaust gas outlet passage. The operation of the first bypass valve 21, the first mixing chamber 22 and the membrane humidifier 10 is fully described above, and when the bypass amount of the second bypass valve 31 is not zero, a part of the wet exhaust gas from the cathode outlet 41 of the stack 40 flows into the second inlet 322 of the second mixing chamber 32. At this time, a part of the wet exhaust gas from the fuel cell stack 40 flows into the humidifier 10, and another part of the wet exhaust gas after passing through the humidifier 10 is mixed with a part of the stack outlet wet air by-passed in the second mixing chamber 32. As the amount of the wet air entering the electric pile outlet of the humidifier is reduced, the amount of water used for humidification is also reduced, thereby achieving the purpose of reducing the humidity of the electric pile inlet air.

In short, the bypass amount of the second bypass valve 31 increases, and the amount of wet exhaust gas entering the membrane humidifier 10 for humidifying the air decreases accordingly, enabling the humidity of the air input to the stack to decrease; conversely, when the bypass amount of the second bypass valve 31 is reduced, the amount of wet exhaust gas entering the membrane humidifier 10 for humidifying the air is correspondingly increased, and the humidity of the air input to the stack can be increased. In this way, the air humidity of the electric pile can be further controlled and regulated.

Referring to fig. 2, the second bypass valve 31 also has a second control port 314 configured to regulate the bypass flow of the bypass outlet end 313 of the second bypass valve 31. The second control port 314 may be a mechanical control port or an electrical control port, enabling the bypass amount of the second bypass valve 31 to be adjusted between 0% and 100%.

Preferably, the first bypass valve 21 may be an electrically controlled bypass valve, which is electrically connected to a second control signal port of the humidification system.

In actual operation of the fuel cell system, a higher current density will produce more water, which in itself is beneficial for the membrane humidity maintenance, and no additional further air humidification measures are required. For active humidity reduction for partial current density conditions (e.g. high current density). Preferably, the system may further include: the current density detection device is electrically connected to the first control port of the first bypass valve and/or the second control port of the second bypass valve through the control signal port, so that the bypass amount of the first bypass valve and/or the second bypass valve can be effectively adjusted through detection of the current density, for example, the bypass amount of the first bypass valve is set to be 100%, or the bypass amount of the second bypass valve is set to be 100%, and the purpose of not humidifying the air input to the electric pile can be achieved. Of course, other bypass amounts may be adjusted as long as the purpose of reducing the air humidity is achieved, and the present utility model is not particularly limited thereto.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the configuration of the humidification system shown in fig. 1 and 2 is not limiting of the humidification system and may include more or fewer components than shown, or certain components may be combined, or a different arrangement of components.

Based on the same technical concept, the embodiment of the present utility model also provides a fuel cell system, which includes the humidity-controllable humidification system as described in the above embodiment, to adjust the humidity increase/decrease of the air humidity input to the stack.

It should be noted that, the fuel cell in the embodiment of the present utility model may implement various aspects of the foregoing embodiments of the humidification system and achieve the same effects and functions, which are not described herein.

While the spirit and principles of the present utility model have been described with reference to several particular embodiments, it is to be understood that the utility model is not limited to the disclosed embodiments nor does it imply that features of the various aspects are not useful in combination, nor are they useful in any combination, such as for convenience of description. The utility model is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A humidity-controllable humidification system comprising a membrane humidifier, further comprising a first bypass valve and a first mixing chamber:

an inlet end of the first bypass valve receives air, a main outlet end of the first bypass valve is communicated with an air inlet end of the membrane humidifier, and a bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve is in bypass communication with a second inlet of the first mixing chamber;

the first inlet of the first mixing chamber is communicated to the air outlet end of the membrane humidifier, and the outlet end of the first mixing chamber is communicated to the galvanic pile.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system further comprises:

a second bypass valve and a second mixing chamber;

an inlet end of the second bypass valve receives the waste gas output by the electric pile, a main outlet end of the second bypass valve is connected to the waste gas inlet end of the membrane humidifier, and a bypass outlet end of the second bypass valve is in bypass communication with a second inlet of the second mixing chamber;

the first inlet of the second mixing chamber is communicated to the exhaust outlet end of the membrane humidifier, and the outlet end of the second mixing chamber is communicated to the exhaust outlet.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the first bypass valve further has a first control port configured to adjust a bypass amount of a bypass outlet end of the first bypass valve.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the second bypass valve further has a second control port configured to adjust a bypass amount of a bypass outlet end of the second bypass valve.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the first bypass valve and/or the second bypass valve is an electronically controlled bypass valve.

6. The system of claim 2, further comprising: and a current density detection device electrically connected to the first control port of the first bypass valve and/or the second control port of the second bypass valve.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the membrane humidifier is a gas/gas humidifier.

8. A fuel cell system comprising the humidification system of any one of claims 1-7.