METHOD AND DEVICE FOR SERVICING ELECTRICAL INSTALLATION BUILT AROUND ELECTROCHEMICAL GENERATOR Russian patent published in 2005 - IPC

FIELD: dc power supplies and dc power systems operating on hydrogen and oxygen.

SUBSTANCE: novelty is that method includes electrical installation starting and running under steady state conditions involving evaporation of liquid methanol and water, production of hydrogen and carbonic acid as result of chemical reaction between methanol and water vapors followed by chemical reaction between produced hydrogen and oxygen to generate water vapors and heat, and water and carbonic acid discharge to environment. When installation is running under steady state conditions, liquid methanol is evaporated due to its thermal chemical reaction with hydrogen and oxygen compound in electrochemical generator and water vapors produced as result of this chemical reaction are conveyed for reaction with methanol vapors to produce hydrogen. Device implementing this method is built around electrochemical generator and has methanol storage tank and series-connected vapor reformer, gas separation unit with carbonic acid discharge line, and electrochemical generator with heat and reaction product discharge lines. Newly introduced in device is methanol pumping circuit incorporating series-connected electrochemical generator communicating through heat discharge line, pump, thinning-and-heat-transfer apparatus, and methanol vapor flow regulator; in addition device is provided with gas heat exchanger, as well as water vapor pumping circuit incorporating series-connected electrochemical generator communicating through hydrogen inlet with reaction product discharge line, water-separating heat-transfer apparatus communicating with water discharge line, fan, vapor reformer, and gas heat exchanger; vapor reformer inlet communicates through gas heat exchanger with methanol vapor flow regulator and methanol storage tank communicates with methanol pumping line and is inserted between thinning-and-heat-transfer apparatus and pump.

EFFECT: reduced ancillary power requirement, enhanced efficiency, reduced size and mass, and simplified design of device.

2 cl, 1 dwg