REACTANT DISTRIBUTION FOR MULTI-STACK FUEL CELL POWER PLANTS

摘要

The fuel cell stacks in a multi-stack power plant are provided with hydrogen-enriched fuel in serial fashion with the fuel outlet (110; 112; 206; 208) of one or more stacks forming the fuel inlet for a subsequent stack in the series. The fuel can be initially fed into the series via two or more stacks in parallel with the outlets of the parallel stacks being combined and fed serially into the subsequent stacks. Alternatively, the fuel can be fed through stacks which are arranged in a simple series, one stack after another. Fueling the stacks in either aforesaid manner ensures that each cell in the stack will receive an adequate amount of fuel for proper functioning and allows for significant relaxing of cell manufacturing tolerances and resulting economics.