Research trends in proton exchange membrane fuel cells during 2008–2018: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

A bibliometric analysis of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) content from a total of 15.020 research publications was conducted between 2008 and 2018, the papers being detailed in the online version of SCI-Expanded, Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Data processing tools such as Hitscite, CiteSpace, ArcGIS and Ucinet 6 were used to process the information. The parameters analyzed in the analysis were: type of document; the language of publication; volume and characteristics of publication output; publication by journals; performance of countries and research institutions; research trends and visibility. The study showed that "Fuel'', "Cell", "Membrane “and "Proton" were found in most of the titles of the documents, while "Performance", "Pemfc”, "Pem Fuel Cell" and "Fuel Cell" were the keywords most commonly used in documents. The analysis found that PEMFC studies have tended to be growing and that leading peer-reviewed journals have produced numerous publications on the subject. The investigation revealed that the country with the most significant production in the field is USA with a contribution of 3009; 20% of the total publications. Followed by China 2480; 16.5%, South Korea 1273; 8.5% and Germany 1121; 7.5%, showing to the main world powers as the most significant contributors to the research.

Proton Conductive Zr-Phosphonate UPG-1—Aminoacid Insertion as Proton Carrier Stabilizer

“…Several innovative technologies have been discovered and used for the green production of energy avoiding pollutant emissions to atmosphere and, consequently, environmental damages (e.g., global warming, water and air contamination, among others). Fuel cells (FCs), in particular proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), have attracted a great worldwide scientific interest due to the possibility to generate electrical power by using carbon-free fuels (e.g., H 2 ) [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Nowadays, those devices are the most promising clean energy systems for electric vehicles (in terms of specific energy are 5 times higher than rechargeable batteries) due to their capacity to make engines work, while consuming the environmentally friendly hydrogen and producing only water as sub-product [ 4 ].…”

Effects of the Chemical Treatment on the Physical-Chemical and Electrochemical Properties of the Commercial Nafion™ NR212 Membrane

“…However, the main components of a PEFC (PEM, gas diffusion electrodes, bipolar plates, etc.) are still the object of an intense technological research, especially the PEM, which is the core of the fuel cell [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”

A comparison of new analysis results and the results in ‘Research trends in proton exchange membrane fuel cells during 2008–2018: A bibliometric analysis’ by Yonoff et al.

“…The Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection, the online version of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), will provide the readers a clearer understanding of which database the authors have used in their research. Based on the searching keywords used in the original paper [ 1 ], all related keywords in SCI-EXPANDED were considered. The database was searched using the searching strategy (“proton exchange membrane fuel cells” or “proton exchange membrane fuel cell” or “PEMFCs” or “PEMFC” or “proton membrane exchange fuel cells” or “PEM fuel cells” or “PEM fuel cell” or “proton exchange fuel cell” or “proton exchange fuel cells” or “protonexchange membrane fuel cell” or “proton exchanged membrane fuel cells” or “proton exchange memberane fuel cells” or “proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell” or “proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells”) not (“polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells” or “polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell” or “polymer exchange membrane fuel cells” or “polyelectrolyte membrane fuel cell” or “polymeric electrolyte membrane fuel cell” or “proton electrolyte membrane fuel cell” or “polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells” or “polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell”) in terms of topic (title, abstract, author keywords, and KeyWords Plus ) in SCI-EXPANDED within the publication years from 2008 to 2018.…”

“…also noticed that ‘The scientific impact was studied by analyzing the 20 most cited publications in PEMFC research for papers published from 2008 to 2018. The list of the most cited articles (TC2018 > 300) is shown in Table 4 .’ ‘Article title’ in Table 4 such as ‘Fuel Cell Systems Explained’ and ‘PEM Fuel Cells’ from the original paper [ 1 ] cannot be found in SCI-EXPANDED. Only five (25% of the 20 articles) were ‘article’ and 13 were ‘review’.…”

“…Only five (25% of the 20 articles) were ‘article’ and 13 were ‘review’. Only two of the 20 articles in Table 4 of the original paper [ 1 ] such as ‘Effective diffusivity and water-saturation distribution in single- and two-layer PEMFC diffusion medium’ [ 14 ] and ‘Visualization of water buildup in the cathode of a transparent PEM fuel cell’ [ 15 ] were related to proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Therefore, most of the articles used in the original paper were irrelevant to ‘proton exchange membrane fuel cells’.…”