Effect of open circuit voltage on degradation of a short proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack with bilayer membrane configurations

In the present work, membrane electrode assembly degradation of a 4-cell stack with specially designed twin catalyst coated membranes (twin-CCMs) was carried out for 1600 h under open circuit voltage (OCV) conditions. Four types of membrane with various thicknesses were employed in the experiment. Each twin-CCM was composed of two membranes of the same type with a catalyst layer coated only on one side. The purpose of this special configuration was to facilitate postmortem analysis of the membrane after degradation due to the detachable membrane structure. By means of several in situ electrochemical measurements, the performance of the individual cells was analysed every 200h during the degradation process. Postmortem analyses such as scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and infrared imaging were also conducted to identify the membrane degradation mechanisms after exposure to OCV. The results indicate that membrane degradation, which correlates with electrode degradation, is the most direct reason for the failure of the whole cell/stack during OCV operation, especially for cells with thinner membranes. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.