Contribution of humidity and pressure to PEMFC performance and durability

In this work, a 23-1 designed experiment has been performed to evaluate the effect of selected operating conditions on PEMFC performance and durability. Relative humidity, clamping pressure and back pressure were studied at two levels for Gore MEAs and GDLs. Two replicated experiments were performed. An ON/OFF test cycle was used to accelerate degradation. Total duration of the tests, after a break in procedure suggested by Gore, was ten days. In addition to sampling of voltage and current response and ohmic resistance, effluents were manually sampled from both electrodes every 24 hours and analyzed. Experiments with low humidification levels showed inferior durability. The combination of high relative humidity (100 %), high clamping pressure (10 barg) and high back pressure (1.5barg) result in the best performance and the lowest degradation rate. Results indicate that relative humidity is important both for performance and durability. Generally, fluoride emission rates (FER) showed an increasing trend with time. Higher rates were observed at the cathode. For the experiment with low relative humidity (25 %), low clamping pressure (5 barg) and high back pressure (1.5 barg) FER was significantly higher compared to the other experiments. For all tests the sulfur emission rates (SER) are initial high. Rates are higher at the anode. For the experiment with high relative humidity, low clamping pressure and no back pressure, the SER was significantly higher than for the other experiments. The sustained high levels of sulfur are probably a result of sulfuric acid residue from production of the MEA and/or GDL. High humidification of gases appears to more effectively wash out the sulfur.