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Abstract

High temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs) need to improve their lifetime! Especially, catalysts and catalyst-layers (CL) can degrade fast and severely. It is therefore sensible to explore new opportunities to increase their durability on an operational and material-based level. In order to achieve this goal, it is furthermore necessary to establish reliable characterization methods for CLs. In this chapter, several methods are discussed which help to shed more light onto the nature of CLs. Techniques for reproducible and spatially resolved in situ measurements of the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) are introduced. Moreover, two CL degradation mitigation strategies are discussed. The first strategy is based on intentionally increased CO partial pressures at the fuel electrode during fuel cell start-up and shut-down. The second approach utilizes graphitized carbon support, which is less vulnerable to start-/stop-induced carbon oxidation. Overall, this chapter tries to open a small window for new insights into properties and characterization of HT-PEMFC catalyst layers.

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Acknowledgement

The authors want to acknowledge BASF SE for financial assistance. We want to thank K.E. Waltar and J. Käse for assistance in setting up the locally resolved measurements and for performing some experiments.

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Correspondence to Thomas J. Schmidt .

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Appendix: MEA Specifications and Abbreviations

Appendix: MEA Specifications and Abbreviations

For all experiments reported in this chapter, BASF Celtec®-based MEAs were used. These MEAs exhibit a thickness of approximately 820 μm including a membrane thickness of around 50–75 μm. They furthermore consist of a highly H3PO4-doped PBI membrane, electrodes with a symmetrical platinum loading of 1 mgPtcm−2 with an active area of 45.15 cm2 and a carbon paper (Sects. 14.2 and 14.3) or carbon cloth (Sect. 14.4) gas diffusion layer. Furthermore, if it was not specifically noted otherwise, only dry gases were used for start/stop simulation and investigation.

Abbreviation

Meaning

BOL

Beginning of life

CL

Catalyst layer

CV

Cyclic voltammetry

ECSA

Electrochemically active surface area

\( {\mathrm{ECSA}}_{{\mathrm{CO}}_2} \)

Electrochemically active surface area measured by CO2 detection

ECSACV vs. ref. CV

Electrochemically active surface area measured by a reference cyclic voltammogram

ECSAmono

Electrochemically active surface area based on the oxidation of one complete monolayer of CO

EOL

End of life

HER

Hydrogen evolution reaction

HOR

Hydrogen oxidation reactions

HT/LT-PEMFC

High temperature/low temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cell

Hupd

Hydrogen underpotential deposition

MEA

Membrane electrode assembly

ORR

Oxygen reduction reaction

PA

Phosphoric acid

Δη mtx

Mass transport losses

Δη ORR

Kinetic oxygen reduction reaction losses

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Engl, T., Gubler, L., Schmidt, T.J. (2016). Catalysts and Catalyst-Layers in HT-PEMFCs. In: Li, Q., Aili, D., Hjuler, H., Jensen, J. (eds) High Temperature Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17082-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17082-4_14

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