Degradation of elastomeric gasket materials in PEM fuel cells

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack requires gaskets in each cell to keep the reactant gases within their respective regions. Long-term durability of the fuel cell stacks depends heavily on the functionality of the gaskets. Both the leachants from the seal materials and the cracking of the seals are of great concern to the overall durability of the fuel cell stacks. The degradation of four commercially available gasket materials was investigated in a PEM fuel cell environment in this study. Optical microscopy reveals that the degradation starts with surface roughness from the early stage of exposure and finally results in cracks over time. Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to study the surface chemistry of the gasket materials before and after exposure to the PEM fuel cell environment over time. Results from these analyses indicate that the surface chemistry changed initially as a manifestation of the chemical degradation and proceeded via de-cross-linking and chain scission in the backbone. Atomic adsorption spectrometry analysis was used to identify the leachants in the soaking solution from the gasket materials. The effect due to applied stress is reported as well.