A Comparative Study of Conditioning Methods for Hydrocarbon-Based Proton-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells for Improved Performance

Abstract

Recent advances in developing hydrocarbon-based proton-exchange membrane fuel cells have focused on optimizing materials. Voltage recovery (VR) has shown notable improvements for perfluorosulfonic acid-based fuel cells. This study is the first to present a VR protocol designed specifically for hydrocarbon-based fuel cells. The proposed protocol involves 100 voltage steps at 0.08 and 0.12 V, lasting 20 s each, at 80 °C, under backpressure and oversaturated conditions. The effectiveness of the protocol is compared to other protocols, including one proposed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and another VR from the literature. The VR protocol results in a 100% increase in the mass activity of the fully hydrocarbon-based fuel cells after only 1 h, while the DOE protocol leads to no improvement, and another established protocol requires 3 h to show a 70% increase. The proposed protocol is also effective for Nafion catalyst layers. The H2/air performance at 0.7 V of the fully hydrocarbon-based fuel cells increases by 21%, resulting in a current density of 0.9 A cm−2, similar to the Nafion reference. This suggests that the proposed protocol is highly effective and significantly reduces the conditioning time, which can be a significant cost factor.