Thermal management of fuel cell-battery electric vehicles: Challenges and solutions

Aezid-Ul-Hassan Najmi, Abdul Wahab, Rohith Prakash, Oliver Schopen, Thomas Esch and Bahman Shabani

Applied Energy, 2025, vol. 387, issue C, No S0306261925003654

Abstract: Fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEVs) are potential solutions for fulfilling high-power demands in road transportation while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, despite being very promising, FCHEVs confront many challenges in their quest to penetrate the present automotive market, with thermal management being one of the major challenges. In addition to significantly reducing FCHEV efficiency, auxiliary loads, heating, and cooling demands can also shorten the lifespan of electric components due to inefficient heating/cooling, which impacts the operating temperature. This review highlights that existing research predominantly addresses individual subsystems, with a limited focus on thermal management integration for FCHEVs. Novel strategies such as waste heat recovery (WHR) are shown to enhance PEMFC efficiency from 40 to 60 % to 90 %, improve thermal efficiency by ∼11 %, and extend the driving range in frigid conditions. By addressing subsystem interdependencies and proposing innovative solutions like phase change materials and combined heat and power systems, this work offers a comprehensive framework for advancing FCHEVs thermal management and optimizing hybrid powertrain performance.

Keywords: Hybrid powertrain systems; Fuel cells; Li-ion battery; Thermal management; Heat recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261925003654
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:387:y:2025:i:c:s0306261925003654

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.125635

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().