LIVE WEBCAST: April 30th at 5:00pm
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Flow Batteries for Grid-Scale Energy Storage
Large-scale energy storage is required to meet a multitude of current energy challenges. These challenges include modernizing the grid, incorporating intermittent renewable energy sources (so as to dispatch continuous electrical energy), improving the efficiency of electricity transmission and distribution, and providing flexibility of storage independent of geographical and geological location. Read more.

How to Publish in ECS Journals
ECS publications span the entire subject area of electrochemistry and solid-state science. The Society publishes peer-reviewed technical journals, proceedings, monographs, conference abstracts, and a quarterly news magazine. The Society’s oldest title, Journal of The Electrochemical Society, has been in continuous publication since the Society’s founding in 1902.

Presented by Robert F. Savinell
Editor of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society and ECS Electrochemistry Letters.

ECS Student Member Benefits, Awards, and Travel Grants
ECS offers a variety of options for students to get involved. Tune in to find out more.

Presented by Beth Fisher
ECS Associate Director of Development & Membership Services

Space is limited! Register today!

Hosted by ECS and the Research Triangle Student Chapter of ECS.

ECS Short Courses are all day instruction designed to provide students or the seasoned professional an in-depth education on a wide range of topics.

Register online today!

Three Short Courses will be offered on Sunday, May 24, 2015.

Taught by industry experts, the small class size makes for an excellent opportunity for personalized instruction helping both novices and experts advance their technical expertise and knowledge.

Short Course #1
Nanotechnology for Bioenergy: Biofuels to Fuel Cells
Instructor: Shelley D. Minteer

Short Course #2
Fundamentals of Electrochemistry – Basic Theory and Thermodynamic Methods
Instructor: Jamie Noël

Short Course #3
Scientific Writing for Scientists and Engineers
Instructor: Noel Buckley

The registration fee:                                                             Students get a 50% discount:
ECS Members: $425                                                                 ECS Student Members: $212.50
Nonmembers: $550                                                                   Nonmember Students: $275

Become a member today and save over 20% on short courses!

Pre-registration is required. Deadline is April 24, 2015.

Learn more!

Gerischer’s immense contributions continue to leave an indelible mark, not only in electrochemistry, but also in physical chemistry and materials chemistry.

An article by Adam Heller, Dieter Kolb, and Krishnan Rajeshwar in the Fall 2010 issue of Interface.

Heinz Gerischer was born on March 31, 1919 in Wittenberg, Germany. He studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig between 1937 and 1944 with a two-year interruption because of military service. In 1942, he was expelled from the German Army because his mother was born Jewish; he was thus found “undeserving to have a part in the great victories of the German Army.” The war years were difficult for Gerischer and his mother committed suicide on the eve of her 65th birthday, in 1943. His only sister, Ruth (born in 1913), lived underground after escaping from a Gestapo prison and was subsequently killed in an air raid in 1944.

In Leipzig, Gerischer joined the group of Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer, a member of a distinguished family, members of whom were persecuted and murdered because of opposition to Nazi ideology. Bonhoeffer descended from an illustrious chemical lineage of Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) and Walther Hermann Nernst (1864-1941), and kindled Gerischer’s interest in electrochemistry, supervising his doctoral work on periodic (oscillating) reactions on electrode surfaces, completed in 1946. He followed Bonhoeffer to Berlin where his PhD supervisor had accepted the directorship of the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the Humboldt University, and also became the department head at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem (later the Fritz Haber Institute). Gerischer himself was appointed as an “Assistent.” Many years later, Gerischer would return to this distinguished institution as its director. With the Berlin Blockade and the prevailing economic conditions the post-war research was carried out under extremely difficult conditions.

Read the rest.

A bowl of “anelloni,” consisting of ring-shaped pasta made from linguine.
Credit: David Michieletto

If the complexities of polymer physics elude you, the scientists from the University of Warwick may have a way to more clearly explain this premise.

Davide Michieletto and Matthew S. Turner have taken to the kitchen in an effort to more clearly explain polymer complexities. In order to do this, the two physicists have created a new type of pasta called the “anelloni.”

The “annoloni” – which is the Italian word for “ring” – works as a sort of analogy to explain the complicated shapes that ring-shaped polymers can adopt.

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Madeleine Jacobs, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the American Chemical Society.
Credit: Peter Cutts

Madeline Jacobs has held steadfast to the idea of improving lives through the transforming power of chemistry during her career. Now, after seeing all she set out accomplish during her time as the American Chemical Society’s director and chief executive officer come to fruition, Jacobs is ready to move on to something new.

Jacobs started her career with the American Chemical Society (ACS) as a reporter for Chemical & Engineering News in 1969. Here, she rose in the ranks – becoming the magazine’s editor-in-chief in 1995.

Her work at Chemical & Engineering News prepared her for the role that she would take on in 2003 as ACS’s executive director.

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A recently conducted experiment may give us a better understanding of how the Earth possibly began.

Scientists took to the lab with a powerful 500-foot laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth.

This from Associated Press:

The researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life.

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After 30 years of research at Argonne National Laboratory, ECS’s Zoltan Nagy edits and updates his Electrochemistry Knowledge Base and serves as the ECS Historian.

What is electrochemistry? Why should society as a whole care?

Long time ECS member, Zoltan Nagy, is partnering with The Electrochemical Society in an attempt to answer these questions with the relaunch of his Electrochemistry Knowledge Base.

Since the late 90s, Nagy has been compiling this huge network of electrochemical knowledge in order to showcase why electrochemistry is so vital to the growth and nourishment of society.

“It may sound selfish, but I think electrochemistry is very important for society and people know very little about it,” says Nagy.

He began compiling the site during the infancy of the internet – around the second half of the 90s.

“I decided to put together a website for the education of the public,” Nagy says. “The articles are written in every simple language so that people can understand and see what electrochemistry does for society.”

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The image to your right may look like a fine art print of an ocean scene at night, but it’s actually just a close-up of some dried Glenlivet 162, or for those of you who aren’t avid alcohol connoisseurs – it’s simply a photo of whiskey.

Maybe “simple” is not the best word to describe the chemical process that takes place, but the discovery that whiskey can make these beautiful images had a humble beginning.

Professional artist and photographer Ernie Button started creating photos of the patterns formed after letting a drop or two of whiskey dry at the bottom of a glass, which resulted in these clear and rhythmic images.

Though he loved the aesthetic value, Button wanted to understand why the images looked the way they looked.

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Today, families, businesses, charities and communities around the world are joining together to celebrate generosity and to give support through #GivingTuesday.

Join ECS and organizations around the world in celebrating #GivingTuesday
by making a donation today.

Support young scientists
Your generosity helps ECS support students and young scientists through:

• Fellowships to encourage innovative research
• Travel grants to enable students to participate in scientific meetings
• Awards to recognize excellence

With your help, ECS will remain committed to fostering the growth and development of electrochemistry and solid state science among the next generation of researchers, scientists and engineers.

Support the science of sustainability
From inventing renewable energy technologies to disposing of toxic wastes and keeping our water clean, the scientists that support ECS hold the keys to solving global challenges in energy, waste and water. Your Giving Tuesday gift will help ECS continue a legacy of scientific recognition, innovation and education.

Please be part of a new global tradition of generosity.
DONATE NOW!

Your donations make it possible for ECS to support students and scientists in the field of electrochemical and solid state science and technology. Thank you for your generosity!

Here at The Electrochemical Society, we give a crap about sanitation. With our recent partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – which awarded $210,000 in seed funding to innovative research projects addressing critical gaps in water and sanitation – we’ve spent a great deal of time these past few months talking about poop.  We plan to keep that trend alive, which brings us to World Toilet Day.

Two and a half billion people – 36 percent of the world’s population – don’t have access to a toilet, according to UNICEF. Globally, more people have mobile phones than toilets. Most people in developed countries think of access to adequate sanitation as a right rather than a privilege.

For this reason, ECS hosted the Electrochemical Energy and Water Summit, where some of the brightest minds in electrochemical and solid state science came together to brainstorm innovative ways to address the global sanitation crisis. We’re not just flushing and forgetting, we’re attempting to make adequate sanitation a basic human right.

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