Customer Reviews

Fuel Cell Fundamentals

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read just about every modern book there is on fuel cells and this one by far is my favorite. It explains everything clearly and provides a good fundamental understanding of fuel cell technology. Given the multidisciplinary nature of fuel cells, this isn't an easy thing to do. The book has a very good format to it as well. The first half provides information about the science behind fuel cells and how they work. The second half is entirely based on application and includes related technologies such as metal hydride hydrogen storage and information about power electronics and control. The book also includes an several appendices which include thermodynamic data as expected but it also has a great little primer on quantum mechanics and a full list of important equations that pertain to fuel cells.

If you work in the fuel cell industry or are studying fuel cells in university you have to own this book.

I used this book for an introductory fuel cell course:

There are simply MANY typos in the equations. This can be frustrating at times but usually the typos become quite obvious with a little inspection. It's somewhat disheartening to see so many errors in a '2nd Edition'--especially when considering that 3 out of 4 authors are Stanford Professors.

Disgarding the errors, however, the book is quite thorough with respect to covering the fundamentals of thermodynamics, chemistry, and relevant transport phenomena prior to presenting fuel cell specifics. The topic of fuel cell fundamentals is an eclectic subject, it requires knowledge from many subjects of mechanical engineering and chemistry. This book does a great job covering all the necessary background so it does not leave you in the dark. The presentation of material is well designed; I recommend this book solely for this reason.

The author does a really good job of scaling information from what people may or may not recall from Chem I & II to what is needed for modeling fuel cells, and the accuracy of modeling is consistently given proper focus. However, the typos are numerous and mainly plague the equations listed, which is the worst possible place for them. To date, I have seen no errata posted by the publisher. This book would be solid otherwise, but for all of the times that it left me scratching my head, saying, "Wtf?" 3/5 is the max that it gets.

This was a required text for one of my classes, and I must say that this book was actually interesting and provided a lot of in-depth knowledge about fuel cells. True to the text's title, 'Fuel Cell Fundamentals", this book offers a detailed and not overwhelming amount of information regarding the basic of fuel cells. Obviously, this text assumes a education level around that of a beginning graduate engineering student, or upper-undergraduate engineering student, and from there builds on the principals of fuel cell construction, chemistry, and limitations. Excellent text for anyone interested in fuel cells in general, regardless if it is a required text or not. The authors make the text interesting, with pertinent example, and the graphs and tables are relatively easy to follow. Good addition to a technical library for the aspiring 'sustainable/renewable' engineer.

I used this book for my advanced analytical course to teach on the subject of fuel cells.
The book is easy to follow and a great primer on how fuel cells work and where the research is going in the field. I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn the basics of the area.