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Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) will greatly shorten their lifespan due to platinum (Pt) catalyst degradation during operation. This paper proposes an optimization-based energy management method considering Pt degradation, which is an improvement over the traditional strategy that only focuses on fuel optimization to consider both the minimal fuel and the minimum fuel cell life decay. Firstly, a one-dimensional (1D) Pt degradation model is established to comprehend how various voltage situations affect Pt deterioration. Then, various strategies to suppress Pt degradation are designed using Pontryagin's minimum principle (PMP) optimization algorithm in light of the influence analysis results, and the effects of the PMP algorithm under different strategies are tested on the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation platform. The results demonstrate that the performance of the PMP algorithm in real-time strategy is extremely near to the global optimal solution generated by the offline dynamic programming (DP) algorithm. After adding the tendency to limit high potential and voltage variation in the PMP algorithm, hydrogen consumption increases by only 2%. In comparison, the stack's degradation is decreased by nearly 50%, considerably extending the stack's service life and reducing the system's comprehensive use cost. • Prior literature verified the construction of a one-dimensional Pt degradation model. • Frequent voltage fluctuations and high voltage will exacerbate degradation via model analysis. • Developed two optimization-based strategies for reducing stack performance degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]