Conjoint Effects of Chemical and Mechanical Stresses on Fuel Cell PFSA Membranes

摘要

During fuel cell operation, proton-exchange membranes (PEMs) are subjected to aggressive chemical environment and mechanical fatigue that alter their properties and may lead to performance loss or, in the worst cases, fuel cell shutdown due to membrane failure. Membrane degradation due to chemical and mechanical stresses remains one of the main factors limiting PEM fuel cell lifetime. Chemical damages are mostly due to radical attacks leading to the scission of the polymer chains (backbone or/and side chains), while mechanical stress comes from repeated swelling/shrinkage cycles caused by the membrane water-uptake. Despite quantities of works focusing independently on chemical (most often) or mechanical (more rarely) degradations, only a few studies were published on the effect of both combined. Among them, Kusoglu et al. demonstrated that a static compression affects its microstructure and accelerates the chemical decomposition of the polymer chains in Nation membranes.