Fuel Cell Technology

The opening chapters to this book are an excellent introduction to fuels cells and their application. I especially like Dr. Spiegel’s enthusiasm for the potential of the fuel cell industry. Later chapters explain the thermodynamic and chemical principles behind fuel cell design. If you do not have knowledge of advanced calculus and its application (like me), you will not understand some of the explanations.

I found it somewhat lacking in practical detail around the actual construction of a fuel cell. My background is in manufacturing engineering. I need to know such things as how many layers at how many square inches are needed to achieve this voltage and current output. It was difficult for me to distill this information from the text. I bought the book for the purpose of constructing a fuel cell (out in the garage! – as my wife says), but didn’t feel I came away with this knowledge.

Dr. Spiegel is clearly an authority in the field of fuel cells. Don’t be put off by the advanced math. The book is an informative and engaging read. I am looking forward to her new book, “The Brilliant Mind: Fuel Cell Experiments for a Bright Future”, to provide me with more applied knowledge of fuel cells. In the meantime, there is a wealth of information on the Internet about fuel cells and their construction (Google: Phillip Hurley).

Rating: 5 / 5

On the whole, this is an excellent text, but I was a bit put off some of the opening discussion. The chapter on the “Hydrogen Economy” — while well-written — really didn’t belong in the front of this book. It feels like an opinion piece, and the discussion questions at the end of that chapter felt biased. The first few paragraphs of the book aren’t about fuel cells, they’re about pollution, fossil fuel use, and global warming. While these are important topics worthy of discussion, they aren’t fuel cells. The same print space could have told me something about nomenclature (What’s a PEM cell? You’ll have to flip ahead to chapter 3 to find out).

If I’m reading this book, I get that fuel cells are an important part of our technological future. What I wanted was an unbiased exploration and explanation of the technology. I got that, mostly, but I also got the author’s opinion on government regulations (the author is clearly for them, and appears to feel that they are the best — possibly only — way to create the Hydrogen Economy) and was told that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant directly responsible for global warming. Reasonable people can and have disagreed with both of these assertions, and I could and have read both sides of these arguments elsewhere. I didn’t need them here.
Rating: 4 / 5