Customer Reviews

Light, Water, Hydrogen: The Solar Generation of Hydrogen by Water Photoelectrolysis

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

 

 

This book presents itself as a comprehensive account of water photoelectrolysis but only partially succeeds.

There is a tremendous amount of substance in Light, Water, Hydrogen. It not only covers water photoelectrolysis, but devotes significant portions to other methods of water splitting (thermolysis, electrolysis, etc.). It thus serves as an excellent introduction to less well known methods of hydrogen production. The scientific presentation seems accurate.

One limitation of Light, Water, Hydrogen is that it seems more like a beefed-up doctoral dissertation than a book. This can be seen readily from the fact that 100 pages of the book are devoted to Grimes' work on nanotube arrays (chapter 5), while just 50 pages are devoted to metal oxides as photoanodes and 40 pages to non-oxides. This choice of emphasis provides a scattered coverage of many important materials that are important both historically and presently. That said, the book is over 500 pages long, and the authors do make an attempt to at least touch on most subjects.

The reason I give the book 3 out of 5 stars is because of the terrible editing. The book seems to have not been edited. There are a huge number of grammatical errors. The tables are very difficult to read -- the text has been shrunk down to such a small print that it borders on illegible. Yet these problems will not stop this book from being a useful reference to those new to the field.

This book can serve as an excellent introduction to the field of hydrogen generation by photoelectrolysis for the newcomer as well as a valuable reference for the experienced researcher. It is extremely well structured and starts with the introduction that explains reader the importance of developing renewable and environmentally clean energy sources. Later, it introduces all the necessary scientific concepts, so that a senior student in the Engineering, Chemistry, or Physics program will have no problem reading it. It covers different type of materials considered for the photovoltaic water splitting with the emphasis on the oxide semiconductors. It references a lot of recent publications providing a great overview of the current status of the field. Thus, I highly recommend this book to virtually anybody interested in the field.