State of health of proton exchange membrane fuel cell in aeronautic applications

Abstract Despite the success of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) in aeronautic applications, there is still limited data on its behaviour. Hence, this paper explores effects of load profile on PEMFC State of Health (SoH) by testing under simulated flight stages at nominal and extreme temperatures. The key findings are that the cruise mode (CR) are the least aggressive mode while the idling mode (ID) and the variable load demand (VL) (namely, climbing, flying and descending) show comparable performance in terms of catalyst activity losses and Pt particle growth, except at extreme temperature for the ID. However, the post-mortem analysis reveals that the VL cause membrane thinning and loose fluoride particles to redeposit on the membrane and the GDL layers while the high voltage during the ID collapse the cathode catalyst layer. The take-off and landing (TL) are the most aggressive at both temperatures causing severe damage to the catalyst and notable delamination between the membrane layer and the gas diffusion layer (GDL). The study concludes that cruise mode has milder operating conditions, which qualified it to be the benchmark test, while the most aggressive TL operating conditions need to be refined in order to optimize PEMFC performance.