Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications

I am studying Lithium Ion battery modeling. I found that this book serves as a excellent tool to bridge the gap between the undergraduate book on electrochemistry and the one by Newman. To do modeling, you absolutely need the book by Newman. But Newman's book is hard to read. Bard's book gives you good ideas on how things work and Newman's tells you precisely how things work. Without having a good idea first, it is hard to understand the more precise and general language used by Newman. I am only interested in modeling. My review is more relevant to that aspect.

This book is a great one to brush up on your fundamentals of electrochemistry and a must-have-on-your-bookshelf item for electrochemists. The latest edition also covers sections on modern day applications of electrochemical methods and serves as a good reference to understand the techniques.

The 1st edition (the 1980 version) was the gold standard of electrochemistry books, and the authors have done an excellent job of revision for the 2001 2nd edition. In particular, the sections on impedance and modern pulse methods flow nicely. The spectroscopy section has been updated as well. I have not worked many problems, but they seem useful in elucidating concepts. The mathematics is of a higher order than one expects from electrochemistry, showing the impact of kinetics on electrode processes nicely. I recommend this text for electrochemistry courses highly.

This is a very complete and thorough book, and covers all of the fundamentals. It suffers from being somewhat out-of-date (1980), so it does not cover modern techniques (e.g., x-ray, STM) or single-crystal electrodes. It can be rough for the first-time student, but it's a must for the serious researcher. I often spend hours working on a problem, only to discover the answer is buried in here!