JP3385781B2 - Fuel cell separator - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a separator used as a partition for stacking cells of a fuel cell used in an energy sector for directly converting chemical energy of fuel into electric energy.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Among fuel cells, for example, a molten carbonate fuel cell is shown in FIG. 3 to FIG.
An electrolyte plate 1 in which a molten carbonate is impregnated into a porous material as an electrolyte is sandwiched by both electrodes of a cathode 2 and an anode 3 from both sides, and an oxidizing gas OG is supplied to the cathode 2 side and a fuel gas FG is supplied to the anode 3 side. By doing so, one cell C is configured to cause a reaction on the cathode 2 side and the anode 3 side to generate electric power, and each cell C is laminated in multiple layers via the separator 4 to form a stack. .

There are various types of separators 4 that serve as partitions when the cells C of the fuel cell are stacked. In recent years, a center plate 5 and gas passages are formed on both sides of the center plate 5. Corrugates 6 and 7
And a cathode-side mask plate 8 and an anode-side mask plate 9 in which a central portion serving as an electrode reaction portion is hollowed out to form only a peripheral portion and the peripheral portion is bent and bonded to the center plate 5 over the entire circumference. Is used.

In the case of an internal manifold type fuel cell as shown in FIG. 3, an oxidizing gas supply manifold 10 and a fuel gas supply manifold 11 are provided at one end of the peripheral portion of the electrolyte plate 1 and the separator 4. , The oxidizing gas discharge manifold 12 and the fuel gas discharge manifold 13 are provided on the other end side. Further, in the peripheral portions of the oxidizing gas supply / discharge manifolds 10 and 12, FIG.
As shown in FIG. 5, the anode side mask plate 9 is joined to the center plate 5 to prevent the oxidizing gas from flowing to the anode 3 side, and the fuel gas supply / discharge manifold 1 is provided.
Although not shown, the cathode-side mask plate 8 is joined to the center plate 5 at the peripheral portions of 1 and 13 so that the fuel gas does not flow to the cathode 2 side.

In the fuel cell constructed as described above, the in-plane temperature distribution of the electrode reaction portion has been conventionally measured.

The conventional in-plane temperature distribution of a fuel cell is measured by
In order to carry out at the separator 4, the mask plate 8 or 9 which is a constituent member of the separator 4 is provided with a hole for inserting the thermocouple insertion pipe 14 as shown in FIG. 4, and the pipe 14 is inserted into the hole. Insert it, and perform processing such as brazing the pipe 14 to the mask plate 8 or 9,
The thermocouple 15 inserted into the separator 4 through the pipe 14 is arranged directly in the gas flow path portion.

As shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of thermocouples 15 are inserted in parallel with the flow direction of the oxidizing gas OG and the fuel gas FG to measure the temperature distribution of each part.

Reference numeral 16 is a current collector.

[0009]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional thermocouple insertion method, the thermocouple 15 is directly inserted into the gas passage portion of the separator 4, so that the gas distribution performance is affected. , And the mask plate 8
Since there is a risk of gas leakage because it is necessary to process 9 or 9, since the pipe 14 is brazed by making a hole in the mask plate, the insertion position of the pipe 14 can be changed when changing the insertion position of the thermocouple 15. There is a problem that the work of changing is difficult.

Therefore, according to the present invention, when the temperature distribution is measured in the separator, the thermocouple can be inserted without affecting the gas flow distribution performance and without processing the mask plate. An object of the present invention is to provide a separator in which the insertion position of the thermocouple can be easily changed.

[0011]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a center plate, and a corrugate for forming gas passages on both sides of the center plate,
It consists of a mask plate with a hollowed central part that becomes the electrode reaction part, and a fuel cell separator or gas passage that serves as a partition when stacking cells in multiple layers by sandwiching an electrolyte plate from both sides of the cathode and anode electrodes. In a fuel cell separator in which a center plate is pressed for forming, the center plate is composed of two plates, a cathode side plate and an anode side plate.
A plurality of spacers having a required width are interposed between the plates, a space is formed between the spacers, and the space serves as a thermocouple insertion portion.

Further, instead of using the spacer, a groove is provided on the opposing surface side of the two plates, and when the two center plates are superposed, the space formed by the grooves is inserted with a thermocouple. It may be configured as a part.

[0013]

[Function] With two center plates for the separator,
If a thermocouple insertion part is provided between them and the thermocouple is inserted between two plates to measure the temperature distribution, the thermocouple is not in the gas flow path part, so the gas distribution performance And the mask plate is not processed unlike the conventional method, and there is no problem of gas leak. Further, in the case where the thermocouple insertion portion is formed by inserting a spacer between the two center plates, the insertion position of the thermocouple can be easily changed.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1A and 1B show an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, an electrolyte plate 1 is sandwiched by both electrodes of a cathode 2 and an anode 3 from both sides, and is oxidized on the cathode 2 side. The separator 4 which is used as a partition when stacking a plurality of fuel battery cells C for supplying gas OG and fuel gas FG to the anode 3 side to form a stack is improved, and an electrode reaction of a fuel cell is improved. The insertion portion of the thermocouple for measuring the temperature distribution of the portion is the center plate portion.

That is, the center plate constituting the separator 4 is composed of two plates, that is, the cathode side plate 5a and the anode side plate 5b, and has a required width between the two plates 5a and 5b. A spacer 17 having a required thickness is inserted and interposed in a direction orthogonal to the flow direction of the oxidizing gas and the fuel gas, and a space 18 is formed with a required space between the spacers 17 adjacent to each other in the gas flow direction. The space 18 is used as an insertion portion for the thermocouple 15, and the thermocouple 15 is inserted and arranged in a direction orthogonal to the gas flow direction.

In addition, around the spacer 17, the manifolds 10, 11 for supplying and discharging the oxidizing gas and the fuel gas are provided.
Manifolds are provided corresponding to 12 and 13.

Center plate 5 of conventional separator 4
If the separator 4 of the present invention in which the thermocouple 15 is inserted between two sheets is not used, the thermocouple is not inserted in the gas flow path portion unlike the conventional case, and therefore the cathode side and the anode side are not inserted. It does not affect the flow distribution performance of each gas, does not need to process the mask plate, and causes no gas leak problem.

When it is desired to change the insertion position of the thermocouple 15, the spacer 17 is replaced with a spacer having a different width dimension, and the position of the space 18 is shifted to the left and right in FIG. Thereby, the insertion position of the thermocouple 15 can be easily changed.

In the separator of the present invention, the size of the space 18 is changed according to the number of thermocouples to be inserted.

Next, FIGS. 2A and 2B show another embodiment of the present invention, in which the center plate is divided into a cathode side plate 5a and an anode side plate 5b, and a spacer 17 is provided therebetween. Instead of the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B in which the thermocouple 15 is inserted between the spacers 17, the lower surface of the cathode side plate 5a and the upper surface of the anode side plate 5b are provided at required positions. A plurality of angular or arcuate concave grooves 19 extending in a direction orthogonal to the flow direction of the oxidizing gas or the fuel gas are provided so as to face each other, and the cathode side plate 5a and the anode side plate 5b are polymerized. The center plate is used, and the space 18 formed by the grooves 19 is used as the thermocouple insertion portion to insert the thermocouple 15.

Also in this embodiment, since the thermocouple 15 is not inserted into the gas flow path portion, it does not affect the gas flow distribution performance and the mask plate is not processed. it can.

In this embodiment, the thickness of the cathode side plate 5a and the anode side plate 5b and the space 18
Needless to say, the size of is changed depending on the number of thermocouples 15.

In each of the above embodiments, as an example,
Although the corrugated separator has been shown, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, a center plate may be press-formed to form a gas passage, and the cathode 2 and the anode 3 may be the electrolyte plate 1. Although it may be opposite to the one shown in FIG. 1 with the spacer in between, further, in the above embodiment, the spacer 17 and the concave groove 19 are provided so as to extend in the direction orthogonal to the gas flow direction.
It goes without saying that they may be arranged so as to be parallel to the gas flow direction, and that various changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.

[0025]

As described above, according to the fuel cell separator of the present invention, the separator comprising the center plate, the corrugate, and the mask plate or the separator obtained by pressing the center plate to form the gas passage. The center plate is divided into a cathode side plate and an anode side plate, a space as a thermocouple insertion portion is formed between the two plates, and a thermocouple is inserted into this space. Therefore, the following excellent effects can be obtained. (i) The influence of the thermocouple insertion on the gas distribution performance is eliminated. (ii) Since there is no processing on the mask plate as in the conventional method, gas leakage from the processed part does not occur, and it is not necessary to braze the thermocouple insertion pipe, so deformation due to brazing is eliminated The production yield is improved. (iii) Since the special processing for inserting the thermocouple is not required, the manufacturability is improved. (iv) In the case where the spacer is inserted between the cathode side plate and the anode side plate, the insertion position of the thermocouple can be easily changed by changing the size and the like of the spacer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a fuel cell separator of the present invention, in which (a) is a sectional side view and (b) is A- of (a).
FIG.

FIG. 2 shows another embodiment of the fuel cell separator of the present invention, in which (a) is a sectional side view corresponding to FIG. 1 (a), and (b) is a BB direction of (a). FIG.

FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view of a fuel cell separator.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged sectional view taken along the line IV-IV in FIG.

5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line VV of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Electrolyte plate 2 cathode 3 anode 4 separator 5 Center plate 5a Cathode side plate 5b Anode side plate 6,7 corrugated 8,9 Mask plate 15 thermocouple 17 Spacer 18 spaces 19 groove

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── --Continued from the front page (56) References JP-A-63-114071 (JP, A) JP-A-6-60898 (JP, A) JP-A-7-176309 (JP, A) (58) Field (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H01M 8/02 H01M 8/04

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A center plate, a corrugate for forming gas passages on both sides of the center plate, and a separator for a fuel cell having a structure including a mask plate, or the center plate is pressed to form a gas passage. In the fuel cell separator, the center plate is composed of two plates, a cathode side plate and an anode side plate, and a plurality of spacers having a required width are inserted between the two plates, A fuel cell separator, wherein a space is formed between the spacers and a thermocouple is inserted using the space as a thermocouple insertion portion. 2. Instead of inserting a spacer between the cathode side plate and the anode side plate to form a space, concave grooves are opposed to each other on the opposed surfaces of the cathode side plate and the anode side plate. The fuel cell separator according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of the fuel cells are provided, and a space formed between the grooves when the plates are superposed is used as a thermocouple insertion portion.