A review of the trends, evolution, and future research prospects of hydrogen fuel cells - A focus on vehicles

This study assessed the most pertinent themes connected to hydrogen fuel cells and vehicles through a bibliometric analysis to thoroughly understand hydrogen fuel cell and vehicle technologies and comprehend the focus of current and future research directions. This study chose the Scopus database, which is considered the largest database containing pertinent documents for bibliometric analysis. A total of 3107 relevant documents were retrieved between the period of 2003 and 2023 and analyzed using visualization tools like the Biblioshiny package in R and the VOSviewer software. According to the analyses, the study involved 724 authors, 15% international co-authorship, 3.74 global co-authors per document, 5463 keywords, and 21.24 citations per document. Research trends related to deploying and optimizing various technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, refueling stations, and machine learning for energy management, are the most evident themes in the most recent 2022-2023 period. The study identified some research gaps on the topic and recommended them as future research potentials.