Thermodynamic and exergoeconomic analyses of a vehicular fuel cell power system with waste heat recovery for cabin heating and reactants preheating

In this paper, a novel vehicular proton exchange membrane fuel cell power system with waste heat recovery for multiple thermal applications is proposed. The waste heat is utilized for cabin heating and reactants preheating. Thermodynamic model of the proposed system is established and validated. The proposed system is evaluated from the viewpoints of thermodynamic and exergoeconomic. The results show that the possible amount of heat supplied to the cabin varies from 933 W to 23971 W by adjustment of operating parameters. Energy consumption and exergy destruction of each component are presented, and components should receive more priority in further researches are pointed out. The effects of the operation parameters on system energy efficiency, exergy efficiency and total cost per unit of product exergy are presented and analyzed by parametric studies. It is found that system exergy efficiency first increases and then decrease as stack operation temperature is increased. Single-objective and multi-objective optimizations for better thermodynamic and economic performance of the system are conducted. By optimizing the operation parameters, the system exergy efficiency could be increased to 45.77%, and total cost per unit of product exergy could be decreased to 29.42 US$/GJ. (c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.