Professor Kevin Kendall started his career as an apprentice at Joseph Lucas Gas Turbine Ltd in 1961 and studied part-time for a degree in Physics which he obtained in 1965. Having done research in diesel, gas turbine and rocket combustion, he joined the Cavendish Laboratory to work with Professor David Tabor on surface chemistry of contact, adhesion and friction. His PhD in 1970 led to a much cited paper on ‘Surface energy and the contact of elastic solids’ published in Proc R Soc Lond in 1971 while he worked at British Railways in Derby. The co-authors were Alan Roberts, who was another of David Tabor’s research students studying the deformation of windscreen wipers, and Ken Johnson from Engineering Laboratory in Cambridge, famous for his analysis in the book Contact Mechanics. This was the first time that the adhesion of elastic spheres had been rationally explained. After Post Docs in Monash, Australia and Akron, Ohio Prof Kendall became a senior research scientist at ICI Corporate Laboratory in Runcorn where he studied polymers, nanoparticles and ceramics for 20 years. When ICI was sold off in the early 1990s, he decided to become an academic and was appointed Professor of Materials at Keele University before moving to Birmingham in 2000.

• Doctoral Training Centre in ‘Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their Applications’ £5.5M programme funded by EPSRC to train 100 PhDs
• Sustainable Development Course for 2nd year undergraduates in Engineering
• Product Development Exercise for 2nd year Chemical Engineering undergraduates is a practical course for teams of students inventing new product formulations

Prof Kendall has supervised twenty-eight successful PhD students and a large number of Masters students.

• Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
• Adhesion
• Nanoparticles

• Founder of company Adelan Ltd
• Royal Society Committees
• Founder member of the European Union JTI project in Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
• Organised annual Hydrogen Fuel Cell Conference since 1993

AB Yu, XZ An, RP Zou, K Kendall, RY Yang Self-Assembly of particles for densest packing by mechanical Vibration, Phys Rev Lett 97(2006) 265501, 1-4.
K Kendall, W Bujalski and CM Dikwal, Cycling of three solid oxide fuel cell types, J Power Sources 171(2007)96-100.
K Kendall, CW Yong and W Smith, Deformation of NaCl particle in contact at the nano-scale, Powder Technology 174(2007)2-5.
K Kendall, CW Yong, W Smith and A Dhir Transition from elastic to plastic deformation as asperity contact size is increased, Tribology Letters 2007.
K Kendall, R Amal, X Jiang and A Yu, Effect of adhesion on aggregation in nanoparticle dispersions. J Adhesion 83 (2007) 573-585
K Kendall, CM Dikwal & W Bujalski, Comparative analysis of thermal and redox cycling for microtubular SOFCs, ECS Transactions 7, SOFC X, The Electrochemical Society (2007) 1521-5.
J Bowen, ME Pettitt, GJ Leggett, JAPreece, K Kendall, ME Callow, JA Callow) Influence of surface lubricity on the adhesion of Navicula perminuta and Ulva linza to alkane thiol self-assembled monolayers, J Roy Soc Interface 4(2007)473-7
K Kendall, A Dhir Improving reliability of microtubular SOFCs for direct use on methane, ECS Transactions 7, SOFC X, The Electrochemical Society (2007) 823-6.
J Bowen, M Manickam, SD Evans, K CritchleyK Kendall, J Preece The pH dependent adhesion of nanoparticles to self assembled monolayers on gold, Thin Solid Films (2007).
N Akhtar, K Kendall, Modelling of mixed reactant SOFCs, European Fuel Cell Forum, July 2008, Luzern.
K Kendall, C Dikwal, Cycling of Microtubular SOFCs, European Fuel Cell Forum, July 2008, Luzern.
M Baalousha, A Manciulea, S Cumberland, K Kendall & J R Lead, Aggregation and surface properties of iron oxide nanoparticles: influence of pH and natural organic matter, Environmental Toxicology and Chem 27 (2008) 1875-1882.
N Akhtar, S P Decent, D Loghin, K Kendall Mixed Reactant Microtubular SOFCs:An experimental study, J Power Sources (2009)
K Kendall, TJ Lee Characterisation of electrical performance of anode supported microtubular SOFC with methane fuel, J Power Sources 181(2008) 195-98.
J Bowen, M Manbickam, P Iqbal, SD Evans, K Critchley, K Kendall, J A Preece The adhesive properties of pyridine terminated self assembled monolayers, Thin Solid Films (2009).
M Slinn, K Kendall, Developing the reaction kinetics for a biodiesel reactor, Bioresource Technol 100(2009)2324-27.
K Kendall, A Dhir, S Du A new measure of molecular attractions between nanoparticles near kT adhesion energy, Nanotechnology 20(2009) 275701.
K Kendall, Chinnan Dikwal Cycling studies of microtubular SOFCs, ECS Trans 25 (2009) 899-906.
BG Pollet, K Kendall, Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: A perfect marriage?, Sustainable Solutions Feb/Mar 2009, 48-9.
PBL Chaurasia, K Kendall, W.Bujalski, S.Du and BG Pollet,"Influence of temperature on V-I characteristics for solar power generation based on chemical method using fuel cell" International Journal of Chemical Sciences: 7(3), 2009), 1893-1904
K Kendall, Progress in Microtubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, (2010) 7(1): p. 1-9
Artur Majewski, David J. Morris, Kevin Kendall, and Martin Wills, ‘A continuous flow method for generation of hydrogen from formic acid’ ChemSusChem (2010)
K Kendall, A Dhir and C W Yong, Strength by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM): Molecular dynamics of water layer squeezing on magnesium oxide, Phil Mag 90(2010) 4117-4128.
K Kendall, SF Du, S Morris and C Sweet, Virus concentration and adhesion measured by laser tracking. J Adhesion 86 (2010) 1029-1040.
SF Du, K Kendall, S Morris and C Sweet. Measuring Number-concentrations of Nanoparticles and Viruses in Liquids On-line. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 85(2010)1223–1228.
K Kendall, B G Pollet, A Dhir, I Staffell, B Millington and J Jostins, Hydrogen fuel cell hybrid vehicles for Birmingham campus, J Power Sources 196(2011)325-330.

Kevin has extensive experience as a commentator in the print and broadcast media. This includes addressing issues relating to green energy and transport technology, as well as his own work.