Regenerative fuel cells are crucial for space exploration, offering lightweight, high-energy-density power solution that can operate reliably in extreme environments and over long missions. Their ability to efficiently store and regenerate energy ensures system functionality even during extended periods without sunlight, such as the lunar night. By splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombining those gases, they form a closed-loop system that eliminates the need for external fuel resupply. This reduces dependence on solar energy and costly resupply missions from Earth, significantly lowering overall mission costs and enabling longer and more distant exploration. Achieving all key performance indicators, while reducing development cycles and costs, calls for utilisation of advanced modelling and simulation tools like those developed by Laboratory for Internal Combustion Engines and Electromobility (LICeM).
Regenerative Fuel Cell Systems (RFCS) are promising for space applications due to their unique advantages in high power density, high specific energy density, low weight, and relatively high-efficiency and lifetime. Although significant progress has been made in RFCS their performance still lags the distributed system. Meeting the demands for higher power density, efficiency, and durability, while reducing development cycles and costs, requires advanced modelling and simulation tools.
The LICeM team of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana has been modelling electrochemical devices for over 15 years. During this time, they have significantly pushed the boundaries of physics-based multi-scale modelling, developing innovative models that have enabled breakthroughs in real-time simulations of intertwined performance and degradation phenomena. Demonstrated by more than 30 publications in high-impact journals, two international patents, and involvement in over 20 internationally funded projects, these tools have proven highly effective in supporting the development of FC and electrolyzer technologies across the entire V-model development process. In a De-risk project Advanced simulation models to boost performance of Regenerative Fuel Cell Systems, these advanced models will be extended to model RFCS, ensuring bi-directional consistency between lower and higher scales and across different domains of RFCS, making it indispensable during the early development stages of RFCS. Newly developed models will accelerate virtually supported R&D of RFCS, bridging the gap from material scale to the device level, and significantly contributing to critical component preparation within ongoing RFCS Development Projects. Moreover, the computationally optimized models also make possible seamless transferability from early development stages to verification and testing in software-in-the-loop simulations and, ultimately, on actual hardware, ensuring robust and reliable system validation. Models developed in the De-risk project Advanced simulation models to boost performance of Regenerative Fuel Cell Systems will, therefore, be instrumental in advancing RFCS technologies, providing essential support for the design, development, and optimization of space-ready RFCS.