Abstract: The limitation of durability is a bottle neck for the vehicular proton exchange membrane (PEM)
fuel system industrialization. This paper focuses on the perfluorinated sulfonic acid membrane typed fuel cell
and gives a complete review on its key components’ degradation mechanism through deliberate analyses and
conclusions to the achievements of PEM fuel cell performance degradation research by native and overseas
scientists. Logic link chart was used to describe the inner relationship of each degradation phenomenon of
the membrane, catalyst, gas diffusion layer and bipolar plate. The causation of PEM fuel under road operating
conditions is concluded and classified with the semi-qualitative analysis figured out and methods for mitigating
performance degradation suggested.

Key words: vehicular fuel cell system, proton exchange membrane (PEM), road operating condition, durability, performance degradation, logic link chart