TABLE OF CONTENTS A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy converter that converts chemical energy of fuel directly into DC electricity. Typically, a process of electricity generation from fuels involves several energy conversion steps, namely:
combustion of fuel converts chemical energy of fuel into heat,
this heat is then used to boil water and generate steam,
steam is used to run a turbine in a process that converts thermal energy into mechanical energy, and finally
mechanical energy is used to run a generator that generates electricity.
A fuel cell circumvents all these processes and generates electricity in a single step without involving any moving parts (Figure 1-1). It is this simplicity that attracts attention. Such a device must be simpler, thus less expensive and far more efficient than the four-step process previously depicted. Is it really? Today not really! Or better, not yet. But fuel cells are still being developed. This book intends to provide a basis for engineering of fuel cell devices. It includes state-of-the-art designs and materials (as they exist at the time of this writing), which are likely to change in the future as this technology continues to develop (perhaps even sooner than the students using this book as a textbook get jobs in the fuel cell industry). However, the engineering basis will not change, at least not dramatically and not so quickly. The knowledge of engineering principles will allow future fuel cell engineers to adopt these new designs and new materials and, we hope,...
