Patents Assigned to Recherche 2000 Inc.
  • Patent number: 9453286
    Abstract: There is described a method for determining single cell current efficiency in an electrolyzer, the method comprising: measuring voltage of a plurality of single cells in the electrolyzer; measuring electrolyzer current feeding the single cells; detecting one of a shutdown period and a start-up period; and for each single cell: determining a time t taken for a voltage level to reach a predetermined occurrence in a voltage curve after a polarization current has been triggered; and calculating cell current efficiency as a function of the time t.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 27, 2016
    Assignee: RECHERCHE 2000 INC.
    Inventors: Gilles Tremblay, Helmut Lademann, Said Berriah, Michel Veillette
  • Patent number: 8152987
    Abstract: There is described a method for ensuring and monitoring electrolyzer safety and performances in a manufacturing process which uses at least one electrolyzing cell containing at least one cathode and at least one anode separated by a membrane, comprising the step of: determining a safe single voltage operation range depending of the current and corresponding to the normally working electrolyzing cell; determining a reference voltage deviation depending on the time derivation of the current; measuring the voltage over time at the terminals of the electrolyzing cell; determining the measured voltage deviation by calculating the time derivative of the measured voltage; comparing the measured voltage to the safe single voltage operation range and the measured voltage deviation to the reference voltage deviation over time; stopping the manufacturing process when the measured voltage is outside the safe single voltage operation range or the difference between the measured voltage deviation and the reference voltage
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2012
    Assignee: Recherche 2000 Inc.
    Inventors: Gilles Tremblay, Helmut Lademann, Georges Simard, Michel Veillette, Said Berriah
  • Patent number: 8114265
    Abstract: There is described a method and a system for evaluating damage of a plurality of cells in an electrolyser. The method comprises acquiring a voltage for each one of the cells; comparing the voltage to at least two threshold voltage levels; classifying the cells as one of: severely damaged cells, non-severely damaged cells and undamaged cells, based on the comparison of the voltage with the at least two threshold voltage levels; and deactivating the cells classified as severely damaged cells from the electrolyser.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2012
    Assignee: Recherche 2000 Inc.
    Inventors: Said Berriah, Michel Veillette, Gilles J. Tremblay
  • Patent number: 7818276
    Abstract: There is described a method and system for detecting an anomaly in data originating from a component used in an industrial process. The anomaly detection steps comprise: providing predictive models in which at least one of the predictive models corresponds to at least one operating mode from a plurality of operating modes of the component; obtaining operating data from the component, the operating data being indicative of a given operating mode from the operating modes; selecting at least one of the predictive models based on the given operating mode; generating estimated data using the selected at least one predictive model; comparing the operating data with the estimated data; and generating an alarm trigger when the comparison meets a given anomaly criteria thereby constituting the detection of the anomaly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 5, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 19, 2010
    Assignee: Recherche 2000 Inc.
    Inventors: Michel Veillette, Said Berriah, Gilles Tremblay
  • Patent number: 7797137
    Abstract: There is described a method for detecting anomalies in a set of signals that normally exhibit analogous behaviour. The method comprises: acquiring a set of signals from at least one measurement source; designating a reference signal Sref from the acquired set of signals; computing a deviation Devi between the reference signal Sref at a reference point in time tref (Sref(tref)) and at least one of the acquired signals Si over time; and generating a deviation alarm trigger when the deviation meets a given deviation criteria.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 5, 2007
    Date of Patent: September 14, 2010
    Assignee: Recherche 2000 Inc.
    Inventors: Michel Veillette, Said Berriah, Gilles Tremblay
  • Patent number: 7616006
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and system for electrolyzer diagnosis based on curve fitting analysis and efficiency optimization. The present invention relates to monitoring the electrochemical cell components by using curve fitting and estimating the overall electrolyzer performance by using predictive models. The system according to the present invention includes an extraction unit for selecting suitable operation zones, a filtering unit, a curve fitting unit performing linear or non-linear regression by using user-defined equations applied to current-voltage data points and a curve fitting goodness analysis unit. The zones are defined as start-up zones, shutdown zones and load change zones. The system further includes a curve fitting parameters characterization unit for classifying curve fitting parameters by respect to the electrolyzer cells components technology and reference values, and a characterization database for storing fitting coefficients and their characterization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2009
    Assignee: Recherche 2000 Inc.
    Inventors: Gilles Tremblay, Said Berriah, Michel Veillette
  • Publication number: 20060289312
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and system for electrolyzer diagnosis based on curve fitting analysis and efficiency optimization. The present invention relates to monitoring the electrochemical cell components by using curve fitting and estimating the overall electrolyzer performance by using predictive models. The system according to the present invention comprises an extraction unit for selecting suitable operation zones, a filtering unit, a curve fitting unit performing linear or non-linear regression by using user-defined equations applied to current-voltage data points and a curve fitting goodness analysis unit. The zones are defined as start-up zones, shutdown zones and load change zones. The system further comprises a curve fitting parameters characterization unit for classifying curve fitting parameters by respect to the electrolyzer cells components technology and reference values, and a characterization database for storing fitting coefficients and their characterization.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 16, 2006
    Publication date: December 28, 2006
    Applicant: RECHERCHE 2000 INC.
    Inventors: Gilles Tremblay, Said Berriah, Michel Veillette
  • Patent number: 6591199
    Abstract: The present invention concerns a method and system for monitoring electrolyzer performances and for diagnosing and predictive identification of faults and events that could affect the manufacturing processes that uses electrolyzers. The system has a plurality of acquisition and transmission units, each of the acquisition and transmission units measuring a plurality of variables related to a respective electrolyzer and for transmitting these variables; a database and data management unit for recording the variables transmitted by each of the acquisition and transmission units; a monitoring unit for monitoring the variables; and an intelligent data analysis and fault diagnosis unit for analyzing the variables and diagnosing events. All of the units are interconnected through a communication unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2001
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2003
    Assignee: Recherche 2000 Inc.
    Inventors: Gilles J. Tremblay, Said Berriah, David Brillon, Thierry Guena