Durability study of activated membrane electrode assembly using accelerated degradation technique

In this work, an MEA was degraded using accelerated stress technique and the MEA performance was studied by polarization curve, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Cyclic Voltammetry (CV). The obtained results indicated that during application of MEA under normal operation conditions, catalyst layer is the first part of MEA that is subject to degradation. Increase of charge transfer resistance and reduction of electrochemical surface area (ECSA) represent this issue.