Recent development on performance modelling and fault diagnosis of fuel cell systems

Abstract

This study reviews the latest works on performance modelling and fault diagnosis of fuel cell systems during the past few years. The fuel cell is a promising alternative power source for various applications in stationary power plants, portable power devices and vehicles. Fuel cells provide low operating temperatures and high energy efficiency with zero emissions. A fuel cell is a multiple distinct parts device and has a series of mass, momentum and energy transport through gas channels, electric current transport through membrane electrode assembly and electrochemical reactions at the triple-phase boundaries. These transport processes play crucial roles to determine electrochemical reactions and cell performance so studies on the performance modelling and fault diagnosis have been done deeply. This review shows how these modelling and fault diagnosis studies offer valid findings for transport and performance modelling of fuel cells and recommendations of enhancing transport processes for improving the cell performance. Future directions on the current research topic are also highlighted which will help the researchers to find the challenges ahead.