Degradation root cause analysis of PEM fuel cells using distribution of relaxation times

Jian Zuo, Nadia Yousfi Steiner, Zhongliang Li and Daniel Hissel

Applied Energy, 2025, vol. 378, issue PA, No S0306261924021457

Abstract: Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells use hydrogen as fuel and produce only water and heat as byproducts. This makes them a promising technology for the worldwide energy transition. However, durability and efficiency remain two main obstacles to their widespread commercialization. Degradation of fuel cells is thus a key focus in recent studies. The majority of existing works use voltage or power as the global health indicator for evaluating the degradation of a running fuel cell. The use of global health indicators is limited in distinguishing the contributions of individual physicochemical degradation processes to the overall performance degradation. This work proposes to investigate the degradation root cause of PEM fuel cells using the distribution of relaxation times (DRT) analysis. DRT is a model-free approach that can separate the overlapped polarization processes by transforming the frequency-domain impedance data into distribution of time constants. Datasets from two long-term durability tests are used to calculate the DRT and identify the degradation root causes. Four distinct peaks are identified from the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy spectra, which correspond to the mass transport, charge transfer of the oxygen reduction reaction, proton transfer, and interface contact. The results show that the degradation of the fuel cell stacks is mainly caused by the degradation of the cathode catalyst layer and the gas diffusion layer. Specifically, these two processes account for 91.2% and 90.4% of the overall degradation in FC1 and FC2, respectively. Moreover, it is found that the mass transport resistance contributes a larger percentage under the dynamic current load (38.2%) compared to the constant load (23.1%). Thus, the oxygen diffusion process needs to be enhanced by proper operating strategy or improving the design of the cathode catalyst layer and gas diffusion layer for dynamic load applications. The proposed method provides a new perspective for the degradation analysis and prognostics of fuel cells, which can be further used for the development of efficient control and management strategies to ensure enhanced durability of fuel cells.

Keywords: PEM fuel cell; Degradation root cause; Distribution of relaxation times; Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy; Polarization resistance; Overpotential losses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924021457
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:378:y:2025:i:pa:s0306261924021457

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.124762

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().