ABSTRACT
Durability is one of the key issues that hinder the commercialization of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. As presented in the previous chapters, degradations occur in all the components of a PEM fuel cell with di‘erent mechanisms under various operating conditions. “e design of PEM fuel cell therefore must be optimized to enhance the durability while maintaining/improving the performance and reducing the cost before its successful commercialization. “e design improvement is needed from each single component to system level. On the single component level, development of novel materials and optimization of geometrical structures of the cell components are the key issues. On the stack level, manifold design and material and design capabilities among di‘erent components need to be carefully considered. On the system level, fuel/oxidant conditioning, thermal management, and monitoring/controlling of the operating conditions are critically important. In this chapter, the design-related durability issues of membrane, catalyst layer (CL), gas di‘usion layer (GDL), membrane electrode assembly (MEA), bipolar plate, ±ow channel, PEM fuel cell stack, and PEM fuel cell system are reviewed in di‘erent sections, and ”nally a summary follows to provide an overview of the chapter.
