Advanced Durability Tests for High Temperature PEM Fuel Cells

Abstract

Durability has been considered a fundamental issue for commercialization of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Especially, recent developments have tended to focus on the PEMFC operating at high temperature range (>120℃) and low relative humidity (<40% RH) because of simplified system and high efficiency. In this study, advanced protocols for durability test based on degradation of high temperature PEMFC are developed, which include accelerated life time (ALT) test to save the time as well as cost. The ALT durability test is compared with the general constant (0.6V) mode test to investigate the different degradation behavior. The electrochemical analyses of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) were confirmed by polarization curve and impedance spectroscopy. *