UCTeam Prague, GLASense, and AixSense Teams win awards

SensUs 2024 Competition

Every year, the annual international SensUs competition on sensors for health challenges student teams from around the world to develop a biosensor for a specific analyte as well as a business plan and live demonstration of their technology. At the event’s grand finale—the SensUs event at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands—the teams showcase their developments, exchange knowledge with other teams, and have a good time. By involving students, industry, patients, and healthcare professionals, SensUs strives to accelerate the development and innovation of biosensors and to stimulate education in this field. ECS Institutional Partner PalmSens supports SensUs.

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Alex Peroff, Ph.D.
Electroanalytical Scientist
Pine Research Instrumentation

We live in a world of instant gratification. Whether it’s streaming video from Netflix, food from Doordash, or next-day delivery from Amazon, we can have it with the click of a button. And in large part, scientific equipment suppliers are keeping up. From online portals generating fast purchase orders, to maintaining sufficient inventory, scientific equipment suppliers are meeting the needs of research scientists. However, as I mentioned briefly in an earlier ECS Blog post, COVID has affected the global supply chain, and its impact has trickled down to scientific equipment suppliers.

Most news headlines reflect the microchip shortage and its impact on the automobile industry. However, the microchip supply is not the only culprit. Automobile manufacturers grew accustomed to receiving parts quickly. As a result, they never kept extra chips in stock. Why keep additional inventory when it could be delivered at a moment’s notice? While it is undoubtedly a more economical and efficient system, its a vulnerability when your supplier can’t deliver on time. Having spare equipment to do your work is a lesson I learned early on when I was a graduate student. (more…)

An Argon-filled “glove box” in the IBM Research Battery Lab, which is used to prepare air-sensitive battery materials such as lithium metal anode and electrolyte formulations, both of which were used in this new battery design. Courtesy: IBM Research

By Young-Hye Na, Manager of Advanced Battery Research Program, IBM Research-Almaden, US

Our world has no shortage of problems to solve. We now stand at a critical juncture for global action to address our most pressing challenges; from the COVID pandemic to climate change and so much more.

IBM has long recognized the urgency to find more sustainable solutions to tackle these problems (The Urgency of Science). For the first time in history we have the right tools at our disposable to do so. AI (artificial intelligence)—combined with advanced computing and access to enormous volumes of data via a secure and open hybrid cloud—can significantly accelerate the process of scientific discovery and the creation of more sustainable materials for use across a broad range of industries, including energy and batteries. 

Better batteries for cleaner energy

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Guest blog by Sujan Shrestha, PhD, Applications Engineer, Admiral Instruments

This is a guide for electrochemists interested in understanding and validating the DC accuracy of their potentiostats. To begin, it’s important to understand how to properly interpret the specifications of the potentiostat to calculate the expected accuracy of current and voltage measurements. Keep in mind that accuracy, precision, etc., also depend on the device under test (DUT). A reliable measurement can’t be obtained from a DUT whose electrochemical properties are in constant flux. (more…)

Guest blog by Dr. Alyson Lanciki, Scientific Editor, Metrohm International

For over twenty years now, there has been continuous human occupation off our planet.

The International Space Station (ISS), launched in 1998, is a modular satellite in low orbit around the Earth, which is visible even with the naked eye.

In October, NASA launched an Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus resupply ship. This cargo ship carried an experimental system on board used to study the oxidation of ammonia under microgravity conditions to convert urine into water on the ISS. Improving this waste management system has far-reaching repercussions for longer exploratory missions where the weight of the payload must be optimized with the amount of water needed (which is heavy) to sustain life during the trip. Given the limited resources aboard a spaceship, the recovery of water from all processes is of great importance. (more…)

The following guest post is by Morgan Frey, Marketing Lead, Ereztech LLC

Logistics may not be top-of-mind when thinking about electrochemical and solid state manufacturing processes, but one failed shipment can throw an entire production schedule off target. Specialty chemicals, such as atomic layer deposition (ALD) precursors for the manufacture of thin films, are considered hazardous materials (hazmat) and therefore require special care and preparation for transportation. (more…)

Join the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for a workshop, Advances, Challenges, and Long-Term Opportunities for Electrochemistry: Addressing Societal Needs. The workshop is on November 18-19, 2019 in Washington, DC. under the auspices of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable of the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology.

The workshop features sessions on the latest applications of electrochemistry in energy storage, energy conversion, and electrosynthesis. In addition to technical talks, speakers and the audience will discuss the resource, training, and workforce needs to advance electrochemistry in the United States. (more…)

Join the ECS Georgia Institute of Technology Chapter and ECS Georgia Section for a free half-day conference featuring speaker William E. Mustain. Gather at Georgia Tech to share ideas, present work, and form new collaborations with graduate students and post doc researchers in the field of electrochemistry (including fuel cells, batteries, electrocatalysis, and bio-electrochemistry).

When:  Friday, September 27, 2019

Schedule:
1000h  |     Check-in and Networking
1100h  |     Featured Talk
1200h  |     Lunch and Poster Setup
1245 h |     Student Poster Contest
1430 h |     Award Ceremony (more…)

Editor’s note: This briefing was written by Bruker Optics. Bruker Optics will be exhibiting (booth 400) at the 235th ECS Meeting in Dallas, TX this May. See a list of all our exhibitors.

Introduction

Electrochemical investigations are a very current topic in research. In recent times advancement in technology and industry results in a world-wide increasing energy consumption. A future requirement to face this trend is the development of high capacity and as well low weight rechargeable batteries for energy storage. Therefore studies of electrolyte systems or electrode surfaces are of great importance for possible further improvements.

Also in other fields, like biochemistry or catalysis, electrochemistry is of great benefit to get access to information of molecules, depending on an applied electrochemical potential. For example of the redox-active center in biomolecules [1], the reaction behavior of catalysts or the formation of carbon oxides during alcohol oxidation.

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Sheela Berchmans, CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute chief scientist.

Guest post by: Sheela Berchmans, chief scientist at the CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute

Sheela Berchmans has been an ECS member since 2012 and member of the Organic and Biologic Division and India Section since 2019. Berchmans’ areas of expertise include microbial fuel cells, nanomaterials for sensor applications, bio-assisted synthesis of metal nanoparticles, and electrocatalysis. Read her past work, available now in the ECS Digital Library.

Follow the latest research on electrocatalysis at the 235th ECS Meeting taking place on May 26-30, 2019 in Dallas, TX.

Electrocatalysis assumes a special importance as the applied potential at the electrified interface provides a tunable ∆G to the rate component. ∆G consists of a chemical and a electrochemical component (e-∆G0/RT e-F∆/RT), where the electrochemical component provides a leverage to control the rate of reaction. For simple nonbonding reactions, the rate of the reaction can be expressed as a function of work function of the metal catalyst. However, when bonding reactions are concerned, the adsorption of the reactants at the electrode surface determines the rate of the reaction. For eg, we take into consideration, Hydrogen evolution reaction, (HER) a typical prototype of electrochemical reaction.

The following reaction steps determine the rate of the reaction. The first step involves the proton discharge on the electro catalyst (Volmer reaction) which desorbs either through an electrochemical desorption (Heyrovsky reaction) or chemical desorption from the electrode surface as H2 gas. (2nd and 3rd steps) This reaction is known to be highly exothermic in nature.

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