CO tolerance effects of tungsten-based PEMFC anodes

The performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) fed with CO-contaminated hydrogen was investigated for anodes with PtWOx/C and phosphotungstic acid (PTA) impregnated Pt/C electrocatalysts. A quite high performance was achieved for the PEMFC fed with H2 + 100 ppm CO with anodes containing 0.4 mg PtWOx cm−2 and also for those with 0.4 mg Pt cm−2 impregnated with ca. 1 mg PTA cm−2. A decay of the single cell performance with time is observed, and this was attributed to an increase of the membrane resistance due to the polymer degradation promoted by the crossover of the tungsten species throughout the membrane.