The effect of ambient contamination on PEMFC performance

The effect of environmental contamination (NOx, SO2) on the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) was studied. The performance of PEMFCs was tested for 100 h with different cathode reactants. According to the Ambient Air Quality Standard of PRC, three kinds of cathode gases were applied to operate the fuel cells, which were 1 ppm NO2/air, 1 ppm SO2/air and a mixture of contaminant gases. The gas mixture contained 0.8 ppm NO2, 0.2 ppm NO and 1 ppm SO2. Finally, the poisoning behavior and the mechanisms were analyzed by constant-current discharging and cycle voltammetry (CV). During the 100 h test, the potentials of the fuel cell degraded by 65%, 77% and 90% with 1 ppm SO2/air, a gas mixture and 1 ppm NO2/air, respectively.