Work

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for proton exchange membrane fuel cells: From implementation to application

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Hydrogen fuel cells play a vital role in achieving a hydrogen-powered, carbon-neutral society. Despite being deployed in various stationary and transportation applications, the limited durability and reliability hinder their full commercialization. Assessing internal health states is critical to overcoming these challenges by preventing operational faults and minimizing degradation rates. However, hydrogen fuel cells are highly nonlinear, multiscale, and multiphysics systems, hindering the estimation of system health states. This review investigates a nondestructive and in situ characterization technique, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), to characterize the health states of hydrogen fuel cells. The variation in internal health states is directly reflected in the impedance spectrum, which can be assessed through proper interpretation. Nevertheless, developing EIS for hydrogen fuel cells is a nontrivial task. Implementing and applying EIS requires interdisciplinary studies in signal processing, control theory, and machine learning in some particular cases. This review systematically discusses EIS’s implementation, interpretation, and application for hydrogen fuel cells. The onboard applicability and short measuring time are key factors in EIS implementation. Model-based and model-free interpretation approaches are reviewed for efficiently extracting valuable health states. Based on these results, the application of EIS to performance characterization, fault diagnosis, degradation analysis, and prognostics is discussed. Four perspectives regarding general, non-electrical, localized, and multiphysics-integrated EIS, are proposed to highlight and guide the EIS-related studies in hydrogen fuel cells. This review offers comprehensive perspectives on the deployment and application of EIS in hydrogen fuel cells, providing valuable insights for academic researchers and industry practitioners in addressing the durability and reliability challenges.

Source: Applied Energy

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2026.129127

Authors: Jian Zuo, Nadia Yousfi Steiner, Xin Wang, Zhongliang Li, Daniel Hissel