A review of PEM hydrogen fuel cell contamination: Impacts, mechanisms, and mitigation

This paper reviewed over 150 articles on the subject of the effect of contamination on PEM fuel cell. The contaminants included were fuel impurities (CO, CO2, H2S, and NH3); air pollutants (NOx, SOx, CO, and CO2); and cationic ions Fe3+ and Cu2+ resulting from the corrosion of fuel cell stack system components. It was found that even trace amounts of impurities present in either fuel or air streams or fuel cell system components could severely poison the anode, membrane, and cathode, particularly at low-temperature operation, which resulted in dramatic performance drop. Significant progress has been made in identifying fuel cell contamination sources and understanding the effect of contaminants on performance through experimental, theoretical/modeling, and methodological approaches. Contamination affects three major elements of fuel cell performance: electrode kinetics, conductivity, and mass transfer. This review was focused on three areas: (1) contamination impacts on the fuel cell performance, (2) mechanism approaches dominated by modeling studies, and (3) mitigation development. Some future work on fuel cell contamination research is suggested in order to facilitate the move toward commercialization.