Effect of the CeO2 nanoparticles in microporous layers on the durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Abstract In this work, the effect of the CeO2 in the microporous layer (MPL) on the durability of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells is investigated. The 400 h dry-wet accelerated stress test (AST) and the open-circuit voltage (OCV) holding testing were used to identify the function of CeO2 in the microporous layer (MPL) on the durability and performance of MEA. The results show that the performance decay of the sample with CeO2 is much smaller than the sample without CeO2 (e.g., 24 mV vs. 140 mV@ 1200 mA cm−2). More importantly, the OCV decrease rate for sample without CeO2 is as high as 7.250μV/cycle, which is 9.6 times as the value of 0.752μV/cycle for sample with CeO2. And it is interesting that the addition of CeO2 in MPL does not increase the inner resistance in the cell. Therefore, the addition of CeO2 to the MPL not only can significantly improve the cell durability but also can effectively alleviate the negative impact of Ce ions on the proton conductivity in proton exchange membrane.