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 100h 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 1ppm NO2/air, 1ppm SO2/air and a mixture of contaminant gases. The gas mixture contained 0.8ppm NO2, 0.2ppm NO and 1ppm SO2. Finally, the poisoning behavior and the mechanisms were analyzed by constant-current discharging and cycle voltammetry (CV). During the 100h test, the potentials of the fuel cell degraded by 65%, 77% and 90% with 1ppm SO2/air, a gas mixture and 1ppm NO2/air, respectively.