A comparison of Fuel Cell Testing protocols-A case study: Protocols used by the US Department of Energy, European Union, International Electrotechnical Commission/Fuel Cell Testing and Standardization Network, and Fuel Cell Technical Team

Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) and the Joint Research Centre-Institute for Energy and Transport (JRC-IET) collaborated to understand the aging behavior of polymer-electrolyte membrane stacks when operated under different duty cycles. The duty cycles were that used by the U.S. Department of Energy (DST) and the US Fuel Cell Council; the New European Drive Cycle (ECE R15); that used in IEC-TS62282-7-1 (IEC) and Fuel Cell Testing and Standardization Network; and the one proposed by the US Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle Efficiency and Energy Sustainability Fuel Cell Technical Team (FCTT). The stacks were cycled using the duty profile in each protocol for 200 h; stack performance was measured every 100 h. Analysis of the relative changes in the average cell potentials at 180 A showed that the rate of performance decline could be ordered as IEC > ECE R15, the latter being slightly greater than or approximately equal to DST and FCTT. Comparing this ordering to the length of time at full power in the duty cycle with the degradation rates shows that they are related. Most likely, the underlying cause of performance decline can be attributed to the manner in which the product water interacts with the stack components. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.