Development and Simulation of a PEM Fuel Cell model for Prediction of Water Content and Power Generation

The proton exchange membrane (PEMFC) fuel cell represents the energy of the future, in parallel with hydrogen. However, this technology must meet many technical challenges related to performance and durability before being sold on a large scale. It is well known that these challenges are closely linked to water management. This paper develops and implements a model of PEM fuel for simulation to make prediction on the water content. The proposed model includes a voltage evolution model based on the electrochemical and dynamics gases aspect, a water activity model to approximate relative humidity and a fuel cell spectroscopy impedance model to estimate the water content in order to make an accurate diagnosis. Furthermore, this work adopts a methods of modeling that presents a new solution to bring water into the fuel cell membrane, where it humidifies the Input gases (air and hydrogen) to a relative humidity over 0%. However, this solution causes a problem of flooding the membrane in the PEMFC. In this work, an Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is used to make the flooding and drying diagnosis in the fuel cell.  The strengths of this proposed model are that it can be used at the same time in the field of power systems and for water diagnosis. This model predicts the response of step change in the load demand, and the water rate introduced by air into the fuel cell. The simulation results are presented with a qualitative interpretation of PEM fuel cell flooding and drying behavior.