Chemical imaging of proton exchange fuel cell components using vibrational spectroscopy

Abstract

The performance and durability of proton exchange fuel cells (PEFC) is strongly affected by numerous degradation process that occur under fuel cell operation conditions. It is therefore desirable to obtain detailed information of the corresponding ageing mechanisms in order to avoid them by improving the design of the individual PEFC components. Beside standard, yet complex ex-situ experiments such as XPS, chemical imaging using vibrational spectroscopic methods is a powerful approach for physical characterization of PEFC components and degradation. This poster demonstrates the applicability of Fourier transform infrared microscopy (FTIR) and Raman microscopy to investigate membrane-electrode-assemblies (MEA) and their components, e.g. the gas diffusion layer (GDL) and micro porous layer (MPL). For the study of the catalyst layer other methods that provide direct information on elemental material composition are more suitable. The presented data comprise fresh MEAs only that can be used as reference samples to study specific degradation mechanism