Temperature-dependent performance of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell using short-side-chain perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer

•We report on PEMFCs that function at high temperature and low humidity conditions.•We compared perfluorosulfonic acid with short-side-chains to long-side-chains.•Higher fuel cell performance at high temperature is achieved for the SSC-PFSA.•We examine changes in the chemical and physical properties at high temperature.•Better properties for high temperature operation is shown at the SSC-PFSA.

We report on polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) that function at high temperature and low humidity conditions based on short-side-chain perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer (SSC-PFSA). The PEMFCs fabricated with both SSC-PFSA membrane and ionomer exhibit higher performances than those with long-side-chain (LSC) PFSA at temperatures higher than 100 °C. The SSC-PFSA cell delivers 2.43 times higher current density (0.524 A cm−1) at a potential of 0.6 V than LSC-PFSA cell at 140 °C and 20% relative humidity (RH). Such a higher performance at the elevated temperature is confirmed from the better membrane properties that are effective for an operation of high temperature fuel cell. From the characterization technique of TGA, XRD, FT-IR, water uptake and tensile test, we found that the SSC-PFSA membrane shows thermal stability by higher crystallinity, and chemical/mechanical stability than the LSC-PFSA membrane at high temperature. These fine properties are found to be the factor for applying Aquivion™ E87-05S membrane rather than Nafion® 212 membrane for a high temperature fuel cell.