Durability studies of PBI-based membrane elect rode assemblies for high temperature PEMFCs

Accelerated durability testing of polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) was performed using test protocols designed to simulate real life operating conditions. The membrane electrode assemblies were fabricated using a novel ultrasonic sealing method, that reduces process cycle times by 98%. The accelerated durability testing protocols involved fuel cell startup/shutdown, load cycling and thermal cycling processes performed over hundreds of hours. We believe that the ultrasonic sealing technique combined with accelerated durability testing will be vital to the development of high volume fuel cell manufacturing.