Air Starvation Accelerated Stress Tests in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells are exposed to various types of degradation in real life operation. While the lifetime of mobile applications is mainly limited by harsh dynamic load changes, stationary applications exhibit longer duration. However, even under very stable load conditions, degradation may occur and failure modes, such as cathode gas supply interruption, can become a lifetime-defining issue. Thus, in this work, the effect of air starvation on the operation of a single cell was investigated. By implementing a segmented current collector plate on the cathode, local phenomena and gradients in current and temperature distribution were identified.