Submit to Membranes Review for Membranes Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Progress in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs)

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2023) | Viewed by 11572

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Muhammad Tawalbeh

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering Department, University of Sharjah, PO. Box 27272, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Interests: fuel cells; renewable energy systems; membrane separation, energy storage
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Amani Al-Othman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, American University of Sharjah, PO. Box 26666, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Interests: PEM fuel cells; electrochemical systems; energy storage; nanocomposite materials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Tedjani Mesbahi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

ICube CNRS (UMR 7357) INSA Strasbourg, University of Strasbourg, 24 Bd de la Victoire, 67000 Strasbourg, France
Interests: electric vehicles; multiphysics modeling; Li-ion batteries; energy management strategies; Industry 4.0

Dr. Tabbi Wilberforce Awotwe

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Engineering and Applied Science, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK
Interests: fuel cells; electrolyzers; renewable energy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As research efforts continue to strive for renewable and sustainable energy, fuel cells appear to offer a promising and clean power source. Among the fuel cells available, proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells are receiving considerable attention. This special issue invites novel research articles on the latest developments and innovations in PEM fuel cells. It fosters various contributions ranging from material characterization, development of various components in the PEM fuel cell, as well as theoretical and experimental results in this cutting-edge research area. Research and review articles that address the progress in various PEM fuel cell applications are also welcomed.

Topics include but are not limited to:

Development of new membrane materials.
Non noble catalysts and low-Pt catalysts
Membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs)
CFD modeling
Bipolar flow field design
PEMFCs for automotive applications
PEMFCs for the aviation applications
Water and thermal management in PEMFCs

Dr. Muhammad Tawalbeh
Dr. Amani Al-Othman
Dr. Tedjani Mesbahi
Dr. Tabbi Wilberforce Awotwe
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

fuel cells
PEMFCs
proton exchange membranes
catalysis
numerical modeling
water/thermal management

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

20 pages, 6533 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Boosting Power Density of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Using Artificial Intelligence and Optimization Algorithms

by Rania M. Ghoniem, Tabbi Wilberforce, Hegazy Rezk, Samer As’ad and Ali Alahmer

Membranes 2023, 13(10), 817; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes13100817 - 28 Sep 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1477

Abstract

The adoption of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells (FCs) is of great significance in diverse industries, as they provide high efficiency and environmental advantages, enabling the transition to sustainable and clean energy solutions. This study aims to enhance the output power of PEM-FCs by employing the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and modern optimization algorithms. Initially, an ANFIS model is developed based on empirical data to simulate the output power density of the PEM-FC, considering factors such as pressure, relative humidity, and membrane compression. The Salp swarm algorithm (SSA) is subsequently utilized to determine the optimal values of the input control parameters. The three input control parameters of the PEM-FC are treated as decision variables during the optimization process, with the objective to maximize the output power density. During the modeling phase, the training and testing data exhibit root mean square error (RMSE) values of 0.0003 and 24.5, respectively. The coefficient of determination values for training and testing are 1.0 and 0.9598, respectively, indicating the successfulness of the modeling process. The reliability of SSA is further validated by comparing its outcomes with those obtained from particle swarm optimization (PSO), evolutionary optimization (EO), and grey wolf optimizer (GWO). Among these methods, SSA achieves the highest average power density of 716.63 mW/cm², followed by GWO at 709.95 mW/cm². The lowest average power density of 695.27 mW/cm² is obtained using PSO. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs))

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 4956 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Application of Support Vector Machine to Obtain the Dynamic Model of Proton-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

by James Marulanda Durango, Catalina González-Castaño, Carlos Restrepo and Javier Muñoz

Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1058; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111058 - 28 Oct 2022

Viewed by 1134

Abstract

An accurate model of a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is important for understanding this fuel cell’s dynamic process and behavior. Among different large-scale energy storage systems, fuel cell technology does not have geographical requirements. To provide an effective operation estimation of PEMFC, this paper proposes a support vector machine (SVM) based model. The advantages of the SVM, such as the ability to model nonlinear systems and provide accurate estimations when nonlinearities and noise appear in the system, are the main motivations to use the SVM method. This model can capture the static and dynamic voltage–current characteristics of the PEMFC system in the three operating regions. The validity of the proposed SVM model has been verified by comparing the estimated voltage with the real measurements from the Ballard Nexa®

1.2

kW fuel cell (FC) power module. The obtained results have shown high accuracy between the proposed model and the experimental operation of the PEMFC. A statistical study is developed to evaluate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed SVM model compared with the diffusive global (DG) model and the evolution strategy (ES)-based model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs))

► Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 5413 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Modelling of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells with Sinusoidal Approach

by Catalina González-Castaño, Yahya Aalaila, Carlos Restrepo, Javier Revelo-Fuelagán and Diego Hernán Peluffo-Ordóñez

Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1056; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111056 - 28 Oct 2022

Viewed by 1556

Abstract

This paper validates a sinusoidal approach for the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) model as a supplement to experimental studies. An FC simulation or hardware emulation is necessary for prototype design, testing, and fault diagnosis to reduce the overall cost. For this objective, a sinusoidal model that is capable of accurately estimating the voltage behavior from the operating current value of the DC was developed. The model was tested using experimental data from the Ballard Nexa 1.2 kW fuel cell (FC). This methodology offers a promising approach for static and current-voltage, characteristic of the three regions of operation. A study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed FC Sinusoidal model compared with the Diffusive Global model and the Evolution Strategy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs))

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

33 pages, 10240 KiB

Open AccessReview

Research Progress, Trends, and Current State of Development on PEMFC-New Insights from a Bibliometric Analysis and Characteristics of Two Decades of Research Output

by Ephraim Bonah Agyekum, Jeffrey Dankwa Ampah, Tabbi Wilberforce, Sandylove Afrane and Christabel Nutakor

Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1103; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111103 - 04 Nov 2022

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6666

Abstract

The consumption of hydrogen could increase by sixfold in 2050 compared to 2020 levels, reaching about 530 Mt. Against this backdrop, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been a major research area in the field of energy engineering. Several reviews have been provided in the existing corpus of literature on PEMFC, but questions related to their evolutionary nuances and research hotspots remain largely unanswered. To fill this gap, the current review uses bibliometric analysis to analyze PEMFC articles indexed in the Scopus database that were published between 2000–2021. It has been revealed that the research field is growing at an annual average growth rate of 19.35%, with publications from 2016 to 2012 alone making up 46% of the total articles available since 2000. As the two most energy-consuming economies in the world, the contributions made towards the progress of PEMFC research have largely been from China and the US. From the research trend found in this investigation, it is clear that the focus of the researchers in the field has largely been to improve the performance and efficiency of PEMFC and its components, which is evident from dominating keywords or phrases such as ‘oxygen reduction reaction’, ‘electrocatalysis’, ‘proton exchange membrane’, ‘gas diffusion layer’, ‘water management’, ‘polybenzimidazole’, ‘durability’, and ‘bipolar plate’. We anticipate that the provision of the research themes that have emerged in the PEMFC field in the last two decades from the scientific mapping technique will guide existing and prospective researchers in the field going forward. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs))

► Show Figures