Modeling of the impact of cycling operating conditions on durability of polymer electrolyte fuel cells and its sensitivity analysis

In the paper, the impact on durability of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells is investigated when varying operating conditions applied in accelerated stress tests. By this, the electric potential cycling protocol in given by a non-symmetric square profile. The electrochemical degradation of a catalyst layer is caused by platinum ion dissolution and oxide coverage. These mechanisms are described by the one-dimensional Holby–Morgan model with a modified Butler–Volmer equation for the reaction rates. For efficient numerical solution of the underlying nonlinear reaction-diffusion system, a variable time-step implicit-explicit method is suggested. Computer simulations predict durability for the catalyst by using a linear extrapolation up to the full platinum surface blockage. A parameter sensitivity analysis is presented on different time scales and measures how the platinum mass loss is impacted by the variation of specific parameters.