Comparison of self cold start strategies of automotive Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

This paper presents an experimental comparison between two self-cold start strategies of automotive Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells. The compared strategies are the most commonly studied ones based on constant voltage and constant current modes, and they are the most effective regarding the energy consumption and system cost. Experimental results show that constant voltage strategy is more advantageous than the constant current strategy in terms of heating time and energy consumption. Nevertheless, constant voltage strategy does not adapt to the variation of operating conditions which creates a problem of repeatability.