Recent advances in fuel cell design and modeling: A comprehensive review

Fuel cells are gaining popularity as sustainable alternatives to traditional energy sources due to their low environmental impact and high efficiency. Among these, direct alcohol fuel cells, proton exchange membrane fuel cells, and solid oxide fuel cells are highly promising. Fuel cells convert fuels, such as alcohols and hydrogen, into electricity with considerably higher efficiency than combustion engines, producing only water as the primary by-product. This clean energy pathway supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and advances SDG 13 (Climate Action) by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependency on fossil fuels. However, significant challenges remain before widespread implementation of fuel cells, including financial feasibility, long-term reliability, and scalability. Therefore, this review aims to address the existing gap in understanding how recent modeling and design advancements can overcome these limitations across different types of fuel cells. This review provides a comprehensive and current synthesis of recent fuel cell modeling and design, uniquely integrating bibliometric trends, experimental advances, and computational methods across all major types of fuel cells. Emphasis is placed on numerical optimization strategies, advancements in multi-physics simulations, sustainable material innovations, and emerging approaches such as artificial intelligence-assisted modeling and integrated multi-scale frameworks. The review offers a cross-disciplinary roadmap to improve the performance, durability, and commercial viability of next-generation fuel cell technologies.