Cathode Catalysts Degradation Mechanism from Liquid Electrolyte to Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

Ideally, for an automotive developer is to evaluate catalysts materials life time, with minimum effort and cost. The membrane electrode assemblies (MEA) in-situ tests are costly and the catalysts degradation only, is difficult to quantify. They do not allow discriminating between different processes contributing to the overall degradation. Furthermore, larger amounts of catalyst material are required and therefore not always suitable when assessing new research catalysts. Liquid electrolyte models ex-situ are the choice techniques to study catalysts durability issues. However, a direct translation of the laboratory data to the real drive situations was not reported, so far.