Relations of Water Management and Degradation Processes in PEFC

Abstract

The life-time of fuel cells is one of the most critical issues for their commercialization. Fuel cell life-time is limited by a gradual decrease of performance induced by degradation of the fuel cell components and by complete failures of components associated with the fuel cell functionality The water management in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEFC) is a crucial factor for the electrochemical performance. Therefore, the relation between water management in PEFC and the degradations processes are highly important. Consequently, the interactions between water balance and degradation processes – meaning which degradation processes influence the water balance and which degradation processes are influenced by the water balance – have to be investigated and to be discussed, which are the content of this paper.