Generic tool for the simulation of electrochemical fuel cell monitoring techniques

Abstract

Within this paper, the development and parameterization of multipurpose dynamic large-signal equivalent circuits (dLSEC) analogues of fuel cells (FC), which are capable of describing polarization curves, electrochemical impedance spectra, current steps and harmonic distortion experiments, is presented. The differences of these equivalent circuits compared to commonly applied small signal equivalent circuits in electrochemistry are discussed. The proposed electrochemical analogues, which serve as multipurpose dLSEC building blocks for complete FC analogues, are explained in detail. Furthermore, an in-house manufactured membrane electrode assembly is tested in a custom FC in order to validate the exemplary model and the proposed fitting procedure thereof. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy data at different operating points i.e. current densities, the open circuit voltage and a differential evolution algorithm are applied to parameterize the analogue. Finally, the parameterized model is applied to simulate experimental results, and compared to real measurements, which were not used for the parameterization procedure itself.