The reactant starvation of the proton exchange membrane fuel cells for vehicular applications: A review

The short service life of fuel cell is a key problem that restricts the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles. Many scholars have found that gas starvation is one of the most important causes of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell lifetime decay, which leads to a series of severe consequences such as carbon support corrosion, cell reversal and output performance degradation. However, accurate diagnosis and effective mitigation of fuel cell gas starvation are not achieved currently. Gas starvation is a condition that the reaction gas of proton exchange membrane fuel cell working in the sub-stoichiometric state. In this paper, we will study the causes, severe consequences, diagnostic methods and mitigation measures of the gas starvation in proton exchange membrane fuel cells through previous literature review. This research is aim to provide guidance to the diagnose methods, to optimize the system control strategy and structure design and to contribute to the studies which are focus on prolong the proton exchange membrane fuel cell lifetime.