Download or read book Ex-situ and In-situ Stability Studies of PEM Fuel Cell Catalysts written by M. T. Hicks and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most significant challenges for proton exchange membrane fuel cells in stationary power generation systems is lifetime, where 40,000 hours of operation with less than 10% decay in performance is desired. There are several different membrane electrode assembly (MEA) associated degradation mechanisms inhibiting MEAs from obtaining their desired lifetime targets. The focus of this research is on the loss of cathode surface area over time, which results in MEA performance losses, since MEA performance is proportional to cathode catalyst surface area. Two proposed mechanisms, support oxidation and platinum dissolution, are studied using different accelerated tests. These results are compared to cathode catalyst surface area loss data from real-time fuel cell tests in order to decouple the two degradation mechanisms.