Challenges to High-Volume Production of Fuel Cell Materials: Quality Control

As fuel cells become more prominent, new manufacturing and production methods are needed to enable increased volumes with high quality. One necessary component of this industrial growth will be the accurate measurement of the variability of a wide range of material properties during the manufacturing process. Three different quality measurement techniques for fuel cell membranes and membrane-containing assemblies are described. The techniques have been demonstrated to detect as-manufactured and simulated defects at substrate motion rates comparable to current industrial production rates for these materials.