Physics‐based Modeling of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells: From Cell to Automotive Systems

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems are expected to cover a key role in the automotive and transport sectors to substitute fossil fuels with renewable green hydrogen and achieve a significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions thus successfully mitigating global warming. System modelling is a new field that is growing that allows to predict the impact of new electrocatalysts and materials on the final application, optimize the operative conditions, predict system durability and support the design of the PEMFC stack and components of the balance of plant. Because of the dynamic operation that occurs in mobility applications, transient models for stack and balance of plant are required. In this chapter an overview of the subsystems and components is carried out in combination with the description of the corresponding models that were developed and implemented to carry out dynamic simulation of PEMFC systems. The chapter focuses on the stack model and some considerations on the hybrid systems are reported in conclusion.