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Gas diffusion layer (GDL), as a critical constituent of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), plays a key role in mass, heat, electron, and species transport. GDL generally has two distinct layers: a macro-porous substrate (MPS) and a micro-porous layer (MPL). The fibers in MPS and the cracks formed during the deposition process on the surface of MPL change the overall transport capacity and effect the output performance of PEMFC. In this paper, methods of identifying the structural features of fibers and cracks in GDL images based on artificial intelligence are proposed. The block probabilistic Hough transform and the quadric voting based on the weighted K-means algorithm are programmed to realize the fiber feature extraction, and the crack feature extraction is realized by the regional connectivity algorithm and the geometric feature calculation based on the circumscribed graph of the crack region.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) require multiple components to operate properly, and the fuel cell stack—the source of power—is one of the most important components. While the number of enterprises manufacturing and selling fuel cell stacks is increasing globaly year after year, the residual challenges of core components and technologies still need to be resolved in order to keep pace with the development of lithium-ion batteries (i.e., its primary competitor). Additionally, many production and distribution standards are seen as unsettled. These barriers make large-scale commercialization an issue. Use of Proton-exchange Membrane Fuel Cells in Ground Vehicles explores the opportunities and challenges within the PEMFC industry. With the help of expert contributors, a critical overview of fuel cells and the FCEV industry is presented, and core technology, applications, costs, and trends are analyzed.