A Multiparadigm Modeling Investigation of Membrane Chemical Degradation in PEM Fuel Cells

We report a multi-paradigm model of the membrane chemical degradation in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs), by combining Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics (CGMD) and a multiscale cell performance model. CGMD is used to generate structural databases that relate the amount of detached (degraded) ionomer sidechains with the water content and the resulting PEM meso-microporous structure. The multiscale cell performance model describes the electrochemical reactions and transport mechanisms occuring in the electrodes from an on-the-fly coupling between Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) sub-models parametrized with Density Functional Theory (DFT) data and (partial differential equations-based) continuum sub-models. Furthermore, the performance model includes a kinetic PEM degradation sub-model which integrates the CGMD database. The cell model also predicts the instantaneous PEM sidechain content and conductivity evolution at each time step. The coupling of these diverse modeling paradigms allows one to describe the feedback between the instantaneous cell performance and the intrinsic membrane degradation processes. This provides detailed insights on the membrane degradation (sidechain detachment as well as water reorganization within the PEM) during cell operation. This novel modeling approach opens interesting perspectives in engineering practice to predict materials degradation and durability as a function of the initial chemical composition and structural properties in electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices.