Impact of alternating fuel feeding on a PEMFC stack durability

The integration of PEMFC for transport applications requires cost as well as system complexity reduction. A novel anode circuit architecture named “Alternating Fuel Feeding” (AFF) was developed. It combines on one hand, the benefits of the hydrogen recirculation and on the other hand, the simpleness of Dead-End Anode (DEA). A previous work demonstrated the benefits on the costs and on the anodic line weight. In the present work, investigations on stack durability, from the system scale to the cell scale, are performed during operation in two anode feeding modes: AFF and recirculation. The performances of stacks are evaluated along ageing tests, coupled with local measurements. At the end of life, postmortem analyses are performed on the aged cells. The degradation rates of stack performances are quite similar in both cases while more heterogeneous cell degradation are observed in recirculation mode along with the ageing according to a Fuel Cell Dynamic Load Cycle (FC-DLC).