Optimizing Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell manufacturing process to reduce break-in time

The final step in a fuel cell manufacturing process is called its “break-in” or “activation”. Its purpose is to increase and stabilize stack performance and is carried out on an “activation bench” for multiple hours. Activation benches are very expensive. Therefore, to achieve low cost mass production of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), the time spent per fuel cell on a test bench needs to be reduced. The focus of this paper is to highlight optimizations that can be applied to the fuel cell manufacturing process to reduce this time. This includes adding, a so called “MEA Pre-Treatment” step to partially break-in a cell, before final stack assembly. Other optimizations include adjusting the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) conditions, reducing the amount of fuel cell membrane additives, or using different products to create catalyst ink. Finally, stack components storage conditions are considered since catalyst poisoning by air pollutants increases break-in time.