Housing for Multiple Fuel Cell Stacks

摘要

Systems and methods are provided for arranging processing units in a common volume to allow for processing of a fluid flow as part of a mass and/or heat transfer process. Fuel cells are examples of processing units that include separate flow paths for processing two input fluid flows with mass and/or heat transfer between the separate flow paths. The arrangements described herein can allow a gas phase fluid flow to be delivered to a first process flow path of processing units in a common volume. The gas phase fluid flow can be delivered in a relatively uniform manner without the use of an intervening manifold to distribute gas from the common volume into the processing units.

主权项

1. A method for processing a gas in a plurality of fuel cells, comprising:
passing a gas from a conduit into a transition region, the transition region having an expansion half-angle of about 15° to about 80°, the transition region being in fluid communication with the conduit and in fluid communication with a common volume, a width of the transition region at an interface with the common volume being at least about 25% of a width of the common volume; introducing at least a portion of the gas from the transition region into the common volume, the common volume containing a plurality of fuel cell stacks, each of the plurality of fuel cell stacks comprising a plurality of fuel cells, the plurality of fuel cell stacks comprising at least about 20 fuel cell stacks, the plurality of fuel cell stacks being arranged to have a row to column ratio (R/C) of about 0.2 to about 5.0; and operating the plurality of fuel cell stacks to process at least a portion of the introduced gas in process flow paths of the plurality of fuel cell stacks, each of the plurality of fuel cell stacks having a process flow path inlet pressure, a coefficient of variation for the flow path inlet pressures of the plurality of fuel cell stacks being less than about 8.0%; wherein the at least a portion of introduced gas that is processed in the process flow paths of the plurality of fuel cell stacks is passed from the common volume into the plurality of fuel cell stacks without passing through an intervening manifold.