This paper aims to study the thermal management issues of the coupled system of metal hydride (MH) and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), and proposes a temperature control strategy based on model predictive control (MPC) to achieve temperature stability during the hydrogen desorption process of MH tank and efficient utilization of waste heat from PEMFC. Firstly, this paper establishes the mechanism and semi-empirical models of the PEMFC system and MH hydrogen storage tank, constructs a complete mathematical model of the PEMFC-MH coupling system. Secondly, an MPC controller is designed. The simulation results show that the proposed control strategy can effectively suppress the temperature drop caused by the heat absorption due to hydrogen desorption of MH, enabling the temperature of the MH tank to stabilize rapidly at the set value (313K). The proposed coupled heat exchange structure and MPC control strategy not only achieve waste heat recovery and temperature stability control, but also have the advantages of simple structure, fast response and high control accuracy.