Recent advancements and prospects of thermal management strategies in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells

Abstract

Work production systems cannot convert all input energy into useful work, and in these systems, always a part of the input energy is rejected to the environment in the form of heat. Therefore, the efficiency of work production systems is limited. In these systems, one of the limiting factors of the work production rate is the disposal of the produced heat during the process. The lack of proper heat dissipation increases the temperature of the system and its various parts of damages. Cooling system is an inseparable part of work production systems. The cooling system can be very simple (a natural circulation air-cooling system) or very complex (a nuclear facility cooling system). Simple cooling systems are usually used for low energy production rates (a few watts) and complex systems for high production rates (several hundred megawatts). The polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell is not excluded from this issue. In addition to the production of electric power, heat is produced in the PEM fuel cell, which is even slightly more than the production power. Therefore, one of the most important challenges that affects the use of this fuel cell is the issue of heat removal from the cell and heat management in it, which is done by a cooling system. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.