Local Degradations Resulting from Repeated Start-ups and Shut-downs in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)

Mitigating the conditions known to accelerate degradations during start-up and shut-down is one of the main requirements to improve the durability of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC), especially for transportation applications. Accelerated stress tests such as cyclic voltammetry cycles are usually used to simulate these conditions. While this technique is easy to implement, the results presented in this paper suggest that the degradations it induces do not correspond to those obtained in real operating conditions.