LAUSR

Abstract The purity of hydrogen seriously affects the performance and life of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), indirectly affects the cost and becomes one of the bottlenecks of its commercial applications. In order to explore the upper limit and allowable concentration of impurities in hydrogen, researchers have carried out a lot of researches. This article collects relevant literatures in recent years, and then elaborates the impacts, mechanisms and mitigation measures of several major impurities (CO, CO2, NH3, H2S, SO2, etc.) in PEMFC. In addition, some researches on other possible contaminations (N2, C2H2, NO2, Na+, Li+, etc) are also introduced extensively to make the readers fully understand the contaminations in the fuel cells and know the progress of current researches, which may provide some guidances and references for their studies. Finally, the research methodologies( and ideas commonly used in the literature are introduced, involving some differences and advices, to provides guidance and reference for later researches and also contributes to the commercialization process of PEMFC.