Development of an Equivalent Electronic Circuit Model for PEMFC Voltage Based on Different Input Electrical Currents

The technological development and exploration of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell have relied on several mathematical models. However, despite the wide variety of models, the equivalent electronic circuit model is the most suitable for describing electrical behavior, designing electronic interfaces, and analyzing control and reliability strategies. In addition to the fact that this type of model is scarce to model the fuel cell voltage, an equivalent electronic circuit model that depends only on the input current has not been reported (in general, the reported mathematical models take into account additional variables such as humidity, temperature, pressure, etc.). For this reason, this work focuses on developing an equivalent electronic circuit model for the fuel cell voltage that depends only on the input current. Besides, the configuration of the proposed circuit (one voltage source, two capacitors, and three resistors) is simpler than the circuits proposed in previous works. To validate the model and its parameters, current tests from
$1.2~kW$
Nexa® fuel cell power module were used. The comparison between the experimental data and the developed model confirms the efficiency of the equivalent electronic circuit model to reproduce the fuel cell voltage as a function of the current.