1 Scope

The objective of this document is to answer several questions that have been circulating in the area of fuel cell development for many years: "What do we know about influencing fuel cell degradation, can we control it and accelerate it in a predictable way, is there a need for accelerated test procedures and can these be formulated adequately enough to be captured in international standards?"

This document is a generic assessment of the feasibility of standardizing accelerated test procedures (both proton exchange membrane (PEM) and oxide ion-conducting solid oxide cell (SOC) technologies) for fuel cell stacks that have been engineered for a specific system application. This document comprises a review of literature and projects, a discussion of the main physical phenomena of interest in accelerated testing campaigns (focusing on the cell and stack levels, not looking at the system as a black box), a compendium of measurement techniques that are applicable, and it suggests a macroscopic approach to the formulation of a representative accelerated testing campaign.