A decontamination procedure for a fuel cell power plant (10) includes
operating the plant to produce electrical power for an operating period,
and then terminating operation of the plant (10) for a decontamination
period, and then, whenever optimal electrical production of a plant fuel
cell (12) is reduced by at least 5% by contaminants adsorbed by fuel cell
electrodes (24, 42), decontaminating the fuel cell (12) of the plant (10)
during the decontamination period by oxidizing contaminants adsorbed by
electrodes (24, 42) of the fuel cell. Oxidizing the contaminants may be
accomplished by various steps including exposing the electrodes (24, 42)
to flowing oxygen; to heated flowing oxygen; to a sequence of start-stop
cycles; and, to varying controlled potentials.