A review on modeling of proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Abstract

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert chemical energy into electrical energy. Among various types of fuel cells proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is considered one of the most promising candidates for the next generation power sources because of high power densities, zero-emission, and low operation temperature. In order to understand and study the PEMFC phenomena, modeling has achieved huge attention and interest in recent years. This article reviews recent progress in PEMFC modeling. Empirical/semi-empirical, analytical and mechanistic models, zero to three dimensional models, multiphase flow models such as multiphase mixture, multi-fluid and VOF model are different types of PEMFC modeling approaches respectively in terms of parametric, dimensional and two or three-phase flow. The present study enlightens the importance of combining different modeling strategies and parameter identification in PEMFC modeling to achieve precise models to reduce the time and cost of experiments.