(480g) High Throughput Screening of MEA Performance and Durability Using Fuel Cell Short-Stacks

The transportation sector currently accounts for a large portion of emissions of both greenhouse gasses, which contribute to climate change, and particulates, which have many adverse health effects. Decarbonization efforts will rely on the rapid development and deployment of electric vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cells have received considerable interest as a cleaner replacement for diesel engines for long distance transportation, as fuel cells can generate more power than batteries and are not range limited. To outcompete diesel engines, fuel cell systems must operate with high fuel efficiency and durability to lower the total cost of ownership to a competitive level. With these ambitious targets, we need to rapidly integrate promising materials in membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) and assess their performance and durability to ensure their competitiveness.

The development of high-performance and durable MEAs is challenging due to the difficult optimization of many processing and fabrication variables (e.g. ink formulation and mixing, deposition method, solvent ratio, hot-pressing, conditioning, etc) that can significantly impact overall performance and durability. Unfortunately, this process is highly empirical therefore requires substantial time and resources when incorporating a novel component. There’s a clear need to accelerate the ability to assess and identify key design parameters to advance the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

To address the limitations in testing capacity, we utilize short stacks to rapidly screen MEAs up to 10 times faster than single cell testing. Levering our experience in electrochemical diagnostics development, we have recently developed galvanostatic techniques to monitor critical MEA properties (like hydrogen crossover, electrochemical surface area, and ohmic resistance) of individual cells in the stack. Coupling electrochemical characterization with high throughput performance screening, our goal is to fast-track the discovery of structure-performance relationships essential to durable fuel cell development. This presentation will highlight these new capabilities and their applications when assessing the degradation of MEAs over the course of accelerated stress tests.