Efficient cold start of Proton exchange membrane fuel cells using a waste heat recovery system for coolant preheating
Aezid-Ul-Hassan Najmi, Vignesh Sai Sudheendra Karur, Thomas Esch, Bahman Shabani
Abstract
This paper proposes an advanced waste heat recovery (WHR) approach that integrates PCM-based latent heat storage (LHS) with a conventional positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heater. The proposed approach aims to capture the fuel cell cooling load during operation and reuse it for stack preheating at cold start-up. The primary objective is to minimize auxiliary power consumption and enhance overall system efficiency in cold conditions. A dynamic 1-D PEMFC system model, validated through experimental data, is employed to simulate the proposed heat recovery arrangement by considering a range of ambient temperatures, PCM masses, and daily usage cycles. Results reveal that the PCM-based WHR system achieves comparable preheating times to the conventional PTC-only method while considerably lowering PTC usage time by 73 % and its power consumption by up to 45 %. An annual analysis further demonstrates total energy savings of up to 38 %, 37 %, and 35 % at − 10 °C, −20 °C, and − 30 °C of ambient temperatures, respectively. These figures underscore the viability of the proposed integrated thermal management strategy in terms of their role in starting up PEMFCs in extreme cold climate conditions.