106 patents
Utility
Solid oxide fuel cell system and method of operating the same using peak shaving gas
16 Jan 24
A fuel cell system and method for using a peak shaving gas, the system including: a fuel inlet configured to receive fuel from a fuel source; a catalytic partial oxidation (CPOx) reactor configured to at least partially oxidize the fuel during startup of the system; a blower configured to provide air to the CPOx reactor; a gas analyzer configured to determine a composition of fuel provided to the CPOx reactor from the fuel inlet; an oxidation catalyst configured to reduce an O2 content of fuel received from the CPOx reactor; a reforming catalyst configured to partially reform fuel received from the oxidation catalyst; and a stack of fuel cells configured to generate electricity using fuel received from the reforming catalyst.
John Fisher, Jayakumar Krishnadass, David Weingaertner, Laxmikant Girwalkar, Shraddesh Malviya
Filed: 21 Jun 22
Utility
Fuel cell column including stress mitigation structures
9 Jan 24
A fuel cell column includes a stack of alternating fuel cells and interconnects, where the interconnects separate adjacent fuel cells in the stack and contain fuel and air channels which are configured to provide respective fuel and air to the fuel cells. a manifold plate containing a bottom inlet hole and a bottom outlet hole located in a bottom surface of the manifold plate, top outlet holes and top inlet holes formed in opposing sides of a top surface of the manifold plate, outlet channels fluidly connecting the top outlet holes to the bottom inlet hole, and inlet channels fluidly connecting the top inlet holes to the bottom outlet hole, and a mitigation structure configured to reduce stress applied to the stack due to at least one of a shape mismatch or coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch between the stack and the manifold plate.
Michael Gasda, Robert Hintz, Karanpal Bhangu, Siddharth Patel, Harald Herchen, Victor Silva, Thuy Thanh Muhl, Tyler Dawson, David Edmonston, Tad Armstrong
Filed: 10 Nov 22
Utility
Large site fuel cell system and method of installing same
2 Jan 24
A modular fuel cell subsystem includes multiple rows of modules, where each row comprises a plurality of fuel cell power modules and a power conditioning module containing a DC to AC inverter electrically connected the power modules.
Srihari Raghavan, David Trevisan, Richard Leitch, Armando Gomez, Aaron Ells, Jessica Mahler
Filed: 28 Jul 22
Utility
Power management in fuel cell system based microgrids
19 Dec 23
Excess DC current generated by a fuel cell stack may be provided to a current source inverter, and an AC current may be output by the current source inverter to a grid side bus.
Prasad Pmsvvsv, Beau Baker, Vignan Reddy Bommireddy
Filed: 8 Nov 22
Utility
Use of hydrogen and liquid natural gas hybrid fuel in marine applications to reduce carbon footprint
12 Dec 23
A method of operating a vessel includes providing hydrogen or a fuel mixture containing hydrogen and a hydrocarbon fuel to a power generator disposed on the vessel, and providing power from the power generator to an electrical load of the vessel.
Martin Perry, Carl Cottuli, Suminderpal Singh, K. R. Sridhar
Filed: 24 Sep 21
Utility
Systems and methods for refurbishing fuel cell stack components
21 Nov 23
A method of refurbishing a singulated fuel cell stack interconnect includes scanning a first pulsed laser beam on an air side of the interconnect to vaporize seal and corrosion barrier layer residue without vaporizing a metal oxide layer located on the air side of the interconnect below the corrosion barrier layer residue, and scanning a second pulsed laser beam which is different from the first pulsed laser beam on the exposed metal oxide layer on the air side of the interconnect to reflow the metal oxide layer without removing the metal oxide layer.
Drew Paran, Ali Delkaninia, Kendall Lui, Tulin Akin
Filed: 18 Jan 21
Utility
Internal light off mechanism for solid oxide fuel cell system startup using a spark ignitor
21 Nov 23
A fuel cell system includes at least one spark igniter containing an insulated cable where at least a first end of the insulated cable is positioned within a reaction zone of the fuel cell system.
Siddharth Patel, Aniket Pratap, Michael Petrucha
Filed: 12 Sep 18
Utility
Multi-input multi-output renewable energy systems
21 Nov 23
Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide a multi-input multi-output energy charging system to generate hydrogen, provide baseload energy to a facility, and provide electrical power to charge electric vehicles (EV).
Barry Sharpe, Brian Hadley, Charles Frederick Walton
Filed: 27 Oct 22
Utility
Fuel cell system for information technology loads
24 Oct 23
A fuel cell system having a power module including at least one fuel cell segment, an input output module including at least one inverter, a rectifier, and an electric distribution module having at least a first electrical connector and a second electrical connector.
Peter Gross, Carl Cottuli, Arne Ballantine
Filed: 25 Aug 20
Utility
Method of fabricating an interconnect for a fuel cell stack
17 Oct 23
Methods for fabricating an interconnect for a fuel cell stack that include providing a protective layer over at least one surface of an interconnect formed by powder pressing pre-alloyed particles containing two or more metal elements and annealing the interconnect and the protective layer at elevated temperature to bond the protective layer to the at least one surface of the interconnect.
Tad Armstrong
Filed: 8 Jul 22
Utility
Non-isolated single input dual-output bi-directional buck-boost DC-DC converter
17 Oct 23
Various embodiments may provide non-isolated single-input dual-output (SIDO) bi-directional buck-boost direct current (DC) to DC (DC-DC) converters.
Ranganathan Gurunathan, Rakesh Roy, Bala Subrahmanyam Kuchibhatla, Srinivas Rao Potta, Deepak Balakrishnan
Filed: 5 May 22
Utility
Fuel cell system including air inlet baffle and method of operating thereof
10 Oct 23
A fuel cell system includes a stack of fuel cells, a cathode recuperator configured to heat air using cathode exhaust output from the stack, and an air inlet baffle disposed between the cathode recuperator and the stack and containing at least two rows of apertures which are separated along a vertical direction and configured to provide the heated air output from the cathode recuperator to plural areas of the stack.
Nilanjana Basu, Nandan Joshi, Hemant Gedam, Kyle Kekelis, David Edmonston
Filed: 14 Nov 22
Utility
Solid oxide fuel cell system with hydrogen pumping cell with carbon monoxide tolerant anodes and integrated shift reactor
3 Oct 23
A fuel cell system includes at least one of plural electrochemical pump separators to separate carbon dioxide from a fuel exhaust stream or a combination of a gas separator and a fuel exhaust cooler located outside a hotbox.
David Weingaertner, Matthias Gottmann, Jayakumar Krishnadass, Chockkalingam Karuppaiah, Arne Ballantine, Swaminathan Venkataraman, Martin Perry, John Fisher, Greg Young
Filed: 2 May 22
Utility
Fuel cell manifold having an embedded dielectric layer and methods of making thereof
19 Sep 23
A manifold plate for a fuel cell stack includes a lower manifold portion, an upper manifold portion, a dielectric layer sandwiched between the lower manifold portion and the upper manifold portion, a bottom inlet hole and a bottom outlet hole formed in a bottom surface of the lower manifold portion, where the bottom inlet hole and the bottom outlet hole extend through the dielectric layer, top outlet holes and top inlet holes formed in opposing sides of a top surface of the upper manifold portion, outlet channels fluidly connecting the top outlet holes to the bottom inlet hole, and inlet channels fluidly connecting the top inlet holes to the bottom outlet hole.
Siddharth Patel, Karanpal Bhangu
Filed: 4 Nov 22
Utility
Low VOC ink compositions and methods of forming fuel cell system components using the same
8 Aug 23
A fuel cell system component ink includes a fuel cell system component powder, a solvent including propylene carbonate (PC), and a binder including polypropylene carbonate (PPC).
Andres Leming, Olexa Stavila, Perry Scheetz, Lisa Adams
Filed: 15 Feb 22
Utility
Interconnect for fuel cell stack
18 Jul 23
Various embodiments include fuel cell interconnects having a fuel distribution portion having an inlet opening, a fuel collection portion having an outlet opening, and a primary fuel flow field containing channels, wherein the fuel distribution portion comprises at least one raised feature defining a fuel distribution flow path, and the fuel distribution flow path is not continuous with the channels in the primary fuel flow field.
Daniel Darga, Cheng-Yu Lin, Vijay Srivatsan
Filed: 19 May 21
Utility
DC transfer switch for fuel cell systems with auxiliary storage module
27 Jun 23
A power generation method includes providing power from a first DC power source to a load, while a second DC power source is electrically disconnected from the load, electrically connecting the second DC power source to the load and providing power from the second DC power source to the load if an output voltage from the first DC power source drops below a threshold voltage and an output voltage from the second DC power source is not below the threshold voltage, and electrically disconnecting the first DC power source from the load if an output current of the first DC power source is below a threshold current.
Prasad Pmsvvsv, Vignan Reddy Bommireddy, Mehdi Ebad, Beau Baker
Filed: 14 May 21
Utility
Fuel cell system with electrical control of fuel utilization and method of operating thereof
30 May 23
A fuel cell system column includes a first terminal plate connected to a first electrical output of the column, a second terminal plate connected to a second electrical output of the column, at least one first fuel cell stack located in a middle portion of the column between the first terminal plate and the second terminal plate, and at least one electrical connection which is electrically connected to the middle portion of the column and which is configured to provide a more uniform fuel utilization across the first column.
Tad Armstrong, Harald Herchen, David Weingaertner, Rajan Surve, Matthias Gottmann, Prasad Pmsvvsv, Ranganathan Gurunathan, Arne Ballantine, Michael Gasda, Tyler Dawson, Chockkalingam Karuppaiah
Filed: 12 Feb 21
Utility
Fuel cell system containing water injector and method of operating the same
23 May 23
A method of operating a fuel cell system includes providing an anode exhaust from a fuel cell stack to a water injector, supplying water to the water injector, and injecting the water from the water injector into the anode exhaust to vaporize the water and generate a humidified anode exhaust.
David Weingaertner, Ivan Hartana, David Edmonston, Michael Petrucha, Martin Perry
Filed: 5 Nov 21
Utility
Methods of fuel cell operation with bi-directional inverters
25 Apr 23
A microgrid system includes first and second DC power sources electrically connected to respective first and second DC electrical power busses, a first uninterruptable power module electrically connected to the first DC electrical power bus and configured to be connected to an alternating current (AC) load, a second uninterruptable power module electrically connected to the second DC electrical power bus and configured to be connected to the AC load, a first bi-directional AC/DC inverter having a DC end and an AC end, where the first DC electrical power bus is connected to the DC end of the first bi-directional AC/DC inverter, a second bi-directional AC/DC inverter having DC and AC ends, where the second DC electrical power bus is connected to the DC end of the second bi-directional AC/DC inverter, and an AC electrical power bus electrically connected to the first and second bi-directional AC/DC inverters at their AC ends.
Prasad Pmsvvsv, Beau Baker, Craig Metcho
Filed: 11 May 21