As sealing material for PEMFC applications, Chao and co-workers have systematically studied the degradation
behavior of silicone rubbers exposed to solutions simulating fuel cell environment and accelerated durability test solutions [26e32].
They found that silicone rubbers corrode severely with the increase in acidity of exposed solutions and the degradation of silicone rubbers was attributed to both chemical decomposition of silicon based backbone and leaching of fillers. Schulze et al. observed that small particles were released from silicone rubbers after operation of an assembled fuel cell [33].