Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HYDROGEN ENERGY
Volume 38, Issue 26, Pages 11346-11356Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2013.06.096
Keywords
Fuel cell degradation; Dead-ended anode; Carbon corrosion; Membrane pin-hole
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [CBET-0932509]
- Ford Motor Company
- Directorate For Engineering [0932509] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Div Of Chem, Bioeng, Env, & Transp Sys [0932509] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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To improve the performance and durability of a dead-ended anode (DEA) fuel cell, it is important to understand and characterize the degradation associated with the DEA operation. To this end, the multiple degradation phenomena in DEA operation were investigated via systematic experiments. Three lifetime degradation tests were conducted with different cell temperatures and cathode relative humidities, during which the temporal evolutions of cell voltage and high frequency resistance (HFR) were recorded. When the cathode supply was fully humidified and the cell temperature was mild, the cathode carbon corrosion was the predominant degradation observed from scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) of postmortem samples. The catalyst layer and membrane thickness were measured at multiple locations across the cell active area in order to map the degradation patterns. These observations confirm a strong correlation between the cathode carbon corrosion and the anode fuel starvation occurring near the cell outlet. When the cathode supply RH reduced to 50%, membrane pin-hole failures terminated the degradation test. Postmortem analysis showed membrane cracks and delamination in the inlet region where membrane water content was the lowest. Copyright (C) 2013, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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