[Back]

Z. P. Du, A. Kravos, C. Steindl, T. Katrasnik, S. Jakubek, C. Hametner:
"Physically Motivated Water Modeling in Control-Oriented Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Stack Models";
ENERGIES (invited), 14 (2021), 7693.

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are prone to membrane dehydration and liquid water flooding, negatively impacting their performance and lifetime. Therefore, PEMFCs require appropriate water management, which makes accurate water modeling indispensable. Unfortunately, available control-oriented models only replicate individual water-related aspects or use over-simplistic approximations. This paper resolves this challenge by proposing, for the first time, a control-oriented PEMFC stack model focusing on physically motivated water modeling, which covers phase change, liquid water removal, membrane water uptake, and water flooding effects on the electrochemical reaction. Parametrizing the resulting model with measurement data yields the fitted model. The parameterized model delivers valuable insight into the water mechanisms, which are thoroughly analyzed. In summary, the proposed model enables the derivation of advanced control strategies for efficient water management and mitigation of degradation phenomena of PEMFCs. Additionally, the model provides the required accuracy for control applications while maintaining the necessary computational efficiency.

polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell; proton exchange membrane fuel cell; control-oriented model; physically motivated model; water modeling; liquid water effects; analytical differentiable model; grey-box model; data-driven identification; transient ex

http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en14227693

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_298276.pdf