Patent ID: 7887964

Claim:
A fuel cell comprising: a fuel cell portion having one or more unit cells, each including paired electrodes and an electrolyte, and a fuel tank for storing a fuel that is supplied to the unit cells, wherein, n denotes a number of unit cells or a total area of the electrodes; and wherein, n is greater than n min , n min represents a minimum value of n that is defined to be W max / wmax , where W max represents a maximum power demanded from the fuel cell and w max represents the maximum output power of each unit cell and further wherein, V represents the entire outer volume of the fuel cell structure, Vc designates the volume of each of the unit cells, and Vm represents the volume of a control portion for controlling the fuel cell portion, K is a proportionality constant based on an energy density of the fuel, and the fuel cell is designed based on analysis of the equation E(n)=K·{V−(Vm+n·Vc)}/n·f(w); and further wherein E(n) is a total amount of energy output from the fuel cell as a function of n and f(w) is a function of output power.