Research team seeks to extend fuel cell membranes

A research team funded by Automotive Partnerships Canada (APC) working to improve durability in fuel cell-powered buses has discovered a link between electrode degradation process and membrane durability. The finding will allow research partner Ballard Power Systems to include the advances in the chemistry to be engineered and implemented into improved membrane lifetimes for its next generation of fuel cell bus modules. The 40-person multidisciplinary team working on system level reliability is comprised of graduate students, post doctoral fellows and undergraduate co-op students from Simon Fraser Univ and the Univ of Victoria. It is also developing simulation tools for use by industry to test protocols and the operation of fuel cell buses to make them competitive with diesel hybrids....