METHOD AND DEVICE FOR CONTROLLING A LIQUID COOLED FUEL CELL SYSTEM

• Main Authors: BRANDT, Torsten, HOFFMANN, Joachim, BRAUNECKER, Michael, MATTEJAT, Arno
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 20.11.2019
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRICITY; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MEASURING; PHYSICS; PROCESSES OR MEANS, e.g. BATTERIES, FOR THE DIRECT CONVERSIONOF CHEMICAL INTO ELECTRICAL ENERGY; TESTING

For monitoring a fuel cell system (1) which is operated with gaseous oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen as operating gases, wherein at least a partial quantity of a cooling liquid is conveyed from fuel cells (3) of the fuel cell system (1) into a measurement cell (11), it is provided according to the invention that the measurement cell (11) comprises a first chamber (12) and a second chamber (12) which are separated from one another by a membrane (14) which is permeable to all three operating gases, wherein the at least one partial quantity of the cooling liquid is conveyed into the first chamber (12), and wherein a thermal conductivity of a gas or gas mixture in the second chamber (13) is measured and, in a manner dependent thereon, a value for a content of at least two of the operating gases in the cooling liquid is determined, and wherein a safety reaction of the fuel cell system (1) is triggered if the determined content (G) of the at least two operating gases in the cooling liquid is greater than or equal to a threshold value (S). In this way, good monitoring of the gas content of the cooling liquid is possible with little outlay in terms of apparatus.