Fabrication methods, structure design and durability analysis of advanced sealing materials in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Abstract

In a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack, there are many cells and each single cell has a multi-layer structure. The bipolar plates, membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and other components must be strongly sealed with gaskets and/or glue. The stable and reliable sealing is crucial for PEMFC stacks in terms of the lifetime. However, the expansion, shrinkage and aging of the sealing leads to the failure of fuel cell due to the complex operation environment. Thus, the function of sealing components plays important roles in fuel cell. In this work, the recent research of fabrication methods, structure design and durability analysis of the sealing materials are comprehensively reviewed and analyzed considering the key properties, including surface morphology, density, hardness, mechanical properties and chemical properties of the sealing materials under various test environments. The novelty of this study is that the failure mechanisms of PEMFC seal materials are also discussed from the perspective of both experimental examination and theoretical modeling. At last, technical challenges are summarized and the possible future research directions are proposed, which may contribute to overcome the challenges of prolonging the durability of the PEMFC stacks in the future researches.