A method for detecting the flooding of a fuel cell in a back-up electric fuel cell generator and for accordingly recovering the flooded fuel cell

摘要

The present invention refers to a method for detecting the flooding of a fuel cell in an electric fuel cell generator and accordingly recovering a flooded fuel cell, comprising:(a) acquiring single cell voltage data for each fuel cell in a stack;(b) calculating an average single cell voltage (ASCV) and a threshold value TV_O as a predetermined percentage of said average (ASCV);(c) comparing the single cell voltage of a cell with said threshold value TV_O;(d) increasing the pressure within the flow conduits of fuel cells if said single cell voltage is less than said threshold value, wherein step (d) is carried out by increasing a flow of re-circulated exhaust gases towards the stack, and by subsequently throttling the flow of re-circulated exhaust gases towards the stack to produce a back pressure of such exhaust gases back to the stack.