Proton Exchange Membranes Fuel Cells: Thermodynamics, Electrochemistry, Component Design and Applications delivers a rigorous integration of thermodynamic and electrochemical principles underpinning Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs), Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs), and PEM electrolyzers. The book addresses a critical pedagogical gap by uniting foundational irreversible thermodynamics, electrokinetics, and transport theory with practical materials science for real-world device design. It is intended for graduate-level students, researchers, and engineers who require quantitative frameworks to predict fuel-cell behavior, design high-conductivity ion-exchange membranes, and analyze coupled heat, mass, and charge transport in operational systems.
Part I develops the scientific foundations-thermodynamics, electrochemical kinetics, transport phenomena, membrane thermodynamics, and Nernst-Planck-based formulations of ionic motion and irreversible processes. Part II transitions to applied technologies, including membrane synthesis and characterization, nanocatalyst design with rotating disk and rotating ring-disk electrode diagnostics, membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) fabrication, bipolar-plate flow-field simulation, single-cell testing, PEM electrolyzer performance and hydrogen storage, and emerging microbial and plant-based fuel cell systems.
- Equips readers with first-principles thermodynamics and electrochemistry to design, size, and evaluate proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells and PEM electrolyzers
- Provides step-by-step synthesis and rigorous characterization of ion-exchange membranes and ORR/OER nanocatalysts directly tied to measurable membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) performance
- Uses simulation-based methods (including FEM) to optimize bipolar-plate flow channels and predict single-cell polarization and losses before prototyping
- Delivers practical MEA assembly, activation, testing, and durability-assessment protocols for both PEMFCs and PEM electrolyzers
