Understanding the chemical degradation of perfluorosulfonic acid fuel cell membranes is key to developing new materials that will meet the U.S. DOE targets for heavy duty vehicle operation of 30,000 hours. For decades, fluoride release rate (FRR) has been used to monitor the chemical degradation of these fully fluorinated membranes. While FRR is no doubt important, it implicitly assumes the entire polymer degrades to carbon dioxide and hydrofluoric acid. This is almost certainly an oversimplification and ignores more complicated degradation products. Two recent studies have employed liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) and combustion ion chromatography (CIC) to analyze the cathode effluent water from a series of open circuit voltage (OCV) accelerated durability tests. The LC/MS study provides detailed structural information, however, quantifying the amount is difficult. The CIC method can quantify the amount of total organic fluoride (TOF) but lacks the structural detail of LC/MS. Together, these two techniques provide new insight into the membrane degradation process under accelerated conditions.

Analysis of fuel cell membrane degradation under accelerated durability conditions

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.