Temperature Control for a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell by Using Fuzzy Rule

Temperature control for a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is important in improving power efficiency and increasing fuel cell lifetime. If the temperature of the cell is too low, then the electrochemical reaction response becomes slow, thereby preventing evaporations of liquid water in the membrane. As a result, cell performance is decreased. However, too high temperature leads to waste in catalyst and heat because of excessive chemical reactions and to liquid water evaporation, which decreases proton conductivity. This study develops an electrochemical dynamical model and a thermal model of a PEMFC using MATLAB/Simulink for simulation. Fuzzy control rules are also built to regulate the temperature of a PEMFC. The fuzzy inputs include temperature error, its derivative, and external load current. The cooling fan speed is chosen as an output variable to regulate the temperature of a fuzzy control because the fuel cell utilizes the air cooling method. After confirming that the designed fuzzy rules are effective for controlling cell temperature, a real experimental device is built using an H-100 fuel cell and a cooling fan to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.