Voltage degradation of high-temperature PEM fuel cells operating at 200 °C under constant load and start-stop conditions

Abstract

High temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT-PEM) offer significant advantages over conventional low temperature fuel cells (LT-PEM), including improved fuel impurity tolerance and increased electrode kinetics. These advantages enable use of reformate fuels with potentially lower costs and simplified handling versus ultra-pure hydrogen fuel required for LT-PEM. Although HT-PEM fuel cell operation has been demonstrated at temperatures above 120 °C, relatively few studies have focused on operation at 200 °C or higher where fuel impurity tolerance is maximized, but at the cost of accelerated performance degradation. To help address this research gap, the present study investigated the voltage degradation of HT-PEM fuel cells operating at 200 °C and 0.4 A/cm2 under continuous load conditions, and at 200 °C and 0.6 A/cm2 during start-stop cycling. Results based on triplicate measurements show an average constant load degradation rate of 102 μV/h, as compared to literature values of 10 μV/h or less at lower temperature and current density. The start-stop experiments showed relatively high degradation rates per cycle up to 50 cycles, with decreasing average degradation rates over 80 and 100 cycles.