Performance and degradation of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells: State of the art in modeling from atomistic to system scale

• Published in: Journal of power sources 2016-02, Vol.304, p.207-233
• Main Authors: Jahnke, T., Futter, G., Latz, A., Malkow, T., Papakonstantinou, G., Tsotridis, G., Schott, P., Gérard, M., Quinaud, M., Quiroga, M., Franco, A.A., Malek, K., Calle-Vallejo, F., Ferreira de Morais, R., Kerber, T., Sautet, P., Loffreda, D., Strahl, S., Serra, M., Polverino, P., Pianese, C., Mayur, M., Bessler, W.G., Kompis, C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: automation; Chemical Sciences; Degradation; Energies; or physical chemistry; Piles de combustible de membrana d'intercanvi de protons; Proton exchange membrane fuel cells; Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells Modeling; Theoretical and; Àrees temàtiques de la UPC
• ISSN: 0378-7753; 1873-2755
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2015.11.041

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) are energy efficient and environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional energy conversion systems in many yet emerging applications. In order to enable prediction of their performance and durability, it is crucial to gain a deeper understanding of the relevant operation phenomena, e.g., electrochemistry, transport phenomena, thermodynamics as well as the mechanisms leading to the degradation of cell components. Achieving the goal of providing predictive tools to model PEMFC performance, durability and degradation is a challenging task requiring the development of detailed and realistic models reaching from the atomic/molecular scale over the meso scale of structures and materials up to components, stack and system level. In addition an appropriate way of coupling the different scales is required. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in modeling of PEMFC, covering all relevant scales from atomistic up to system level as well as the coupling between these scales. Furthermore, it focuses on the modeling of PEMFC degradation mechanisms and on the coupling between performance and degradation models. •We review PEMFC models ranging from the atomistic scale up to the system level.•We review multiscale approaches for the coupling between the scales.•We review degradation models for all PEMFC components.•Advantages, drawbacks and open issues of the models are discussed.