A review of accelerated stress tests of MEA durability in PEM fuel cells

This paper is a review of recent work done on accelerated stress tests in the study of PEM fuel cell durability, with a primary focus on the main components of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The accelerated stressors for each component under different conditions are outlined, in an attempt to gain a detailed understanding of cell degradation with respect to microstructural change and performance attenuation in the perfluorosulfonic acid membrane, catalyst, and gas diffusion layers. Various techniques for evaluating the components' performance are presented, along with representative mitigation strategies. In addition, different degradation mechanisms proposed in recent publications are briefly reviewed.