Pictured is the funding review panel for the 2014 Electrochemical Energy and Water Summit grant proposals: Gerardo Arriaga, Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnologico en Electroquimica; Kathy Ayers, Proton OnSite; Ioannis Ieropoulos, University of the West of England – Bristol; Paul Kohl, Georgia Tech, President of ECS; Barry MacDougall, National Research Council of Canada, Past President of ECS; Paul Natishan, Naval Research Laboratory, Past President of ECS; Brian Stoner, RTI International; E. Jennings Taylor, Faraday Technology Inc. and Treasurer of ECS. Non-voting observers pictured: Dan Fatton, ECS Director of Development, Roque Calvo, ECS Executive Director, Carl Hensman, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The winners of the 2014 Electrochemical Energy and Water Summit funding challenge have been selected and notified. Once we get the signed agreements from each of their institutions, we will formally announce the results.

It was an incredible experience all around. Thank you to everyone who participated.

By the numbers:

• 2,200+ attendees
• 120 participants in the facilitated brainstorm
• 47 proposals received
• 30 applicants invited to present
• 4 projects selected
• $210,000 in funding and the projects will be announced soon!

See what else happened at the meeting.

ECS Transactions (ECST) is the online database containing full-text content of proceedings from ECS meetings and ECS-sponsored meetings.

The 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meet “at meeting” issues of ECS Transactions have now been published. Have a look.

In addition, all reminding proceedings from the 225th Spring ECS Meeting in Orlando, FL have now been published in ECS Transactions.

The lack of adequate sanitation facilities accounts for 4,100 preventable deaths every day.
Credit: Kofi Opoku, West Virginia University

With our Energy and Water Summit right around the corner, we’ve only got one thing on our mind: poop.

Forty percent of the world’s population – 2.5 billion people – practice open defecation or lack adequate sanitation facilities, and the consequences can be devastating for human health as well as the environment.

The Electrochemical Society and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation know there is no easy solution to this problem, but we are dedicated to finding and funding innovative research to reinvent the sanitation infrastructure.

In Francis de los Reyes’ TEDTalk entitled, “Sanitation is a basic human right,” the environmental engineer and sanitation activist makes his case for the total reinvention of the sanitation landscape as we know it.

“For the past 14-years, I’ve been teaching crap,” Reyes says.

And that he has. Reyes has dedicated his time to studying and researching human waste. The problem is especially relevant in India, where open deification is putting citizens at major health risks.

Less than a third of India’s 1.2 billion people have access to sanitation and more than 186,000 children under five die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, according to the charity WaterAid.

The United Nations said in May half of India’s people defecate outside – putting people at risk of cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid.

Read the full article here.

With India accounting for 818 million of the 2.5 billion people who lack adequate sanitation, most of the country’s rivers and lakes are polluted with sewage and industrial effluents.

So why can’t we just build western style flush-toilets in countries such as India?

“It’s just not possible,” Reyes says.

In these developing worlds, there is often time not enough water or energy to take on such a feat. Also, laying out sewer lines would cost governments tens of trillions of dollars.

Through our partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we hope to help solve these issues.

Didn’t get our postcard? (Click to see it big.) Don’t be hurt. We do want to see you in Cancun. Find out more about our fall meeting!

Damon opts to use toilet water in lieu of fresh H2O for his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Like many other celebrities, Matt Damon has decided to do his part and participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Though, the award-winning actor and humanitarian was a bit conflicted about wasting a bucket of clean water.

His solution? Use toilet water, of course.

“It posed kind of a problem for me, not only because there’s a drought here in California,” Damon explained in his video, “but because I co-founded Water.org, and we envision the day when everybody has access to clean drinking water – and there are about 800 million people in the world who don’t – and so dumping a clean bucket of water on my head seemed a little crazy.”

According to Water.org, there are about 2.4 billion people globally who still lack access to clean sanitation systems. Through his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Damon saw a way to not only contribute to a good cause – but also educate about the very important global issue of sanitation.

“For those of you like my wife who think this is really disgusting, keep in mind that the water in our toilets in the West is actually cleaner than the water that most people in the developing world have access too.”

ECS is also focusing on the global issue of sanitation by partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at the 4th International Electrochemical Energy Summit. By distributing over $200,000 in funding, ECS hopes to empower researchers and bolster innovate research. Join us in Cancun, October 5-9, to take part in this multi-day workshop.

Greg, a 6 year ECS member, thinks the older you get the more important membership becomes.

Our last video, shot in May 2014 was about coming to the ECS meetings. This new one, also shot in Florida, is about becoming a member.

Turns out there are a lot of reasons to become a member. But the best part for me was sharing the finished product with the folks here in the home office. They walked away with a smile, saying it was nice to hear all those good things about ECS.

You can have your head down working so hard, so focused on the day-to-day, that it’s easy to forget the big picture and what all those little things we do here add up to.

Thanks to all the members!

Find out more about individual, institutional, and student memberships.

The 227th ECS Meeting is in Chicago, IL from May 24 – 28, 2015

The call for abstracts for the 227th ECS Meeting to be held May 24-28, 2015 in Chicago, IL is now open.

Meeting abstracts should explicitly state objectives, new results, and conclusions or significance of the work.

Regardless of whether you submit as a poster or an
oral presentation, it is at the symposium organizers’ discretion whether it is scheduled for an oral or poster presentation.

Programming for this meeting will occur in January 2015.

Abstracts are due no later than November 14, 2014.

Find out more.

The goal: to enable universal access to sustainable sanitation services by supporting the development of radically new sanitation technologies as well as markets for new sanitation products and services.

ECS is partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to host a multi-day workshop at the 2014 International Electrochemical Energy Summit (E2S) which takes place during the ECS and SMEQ Joint International meeting in Cancun, Mexico being held Oct. 5-9, 2014. The workshop will culminate in the distribution of over $200,000 in seed funding from ECS, addressing critical technology gaps in water, sanitation, and hygiene challenges being faced around the world.

40% of the world’s population–2.5 billion people–practice open defecation or lack adequate sanitation facilities, and the consequences can be devastating for human health as well as the environment.

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Although the sponsorship and exhibit deadlines have officially passed, we might be able to work with you for the Cancun meeting in October. There are still 5 exhibit spaces left; join this list today!

We can also still accept symposia sponsorships, which support the participation of scientists from around the world.

If you would like to discuss your options to participate, please email Dan Fatton, or call him at 609.737.1902 ext. 115. For some ideas on additional possibilities, please peruse the brochure.

Find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with ECS.

Poster session in Orlando at 2014 225th ECS meeting.

The 2014 ECS and SMEQ (Sociedad Mexicana de Electroquímica) Joint International Meeting is being held Oct 5-9, 2014 in Cancun, Mexico.

Register now!

Besides this being is an international conference about electrochemistry and solid state science and technology; and a major forum for the discussion of interdisciplinary research from around the world; and the poster sessions; and the exhibits; and meeting old friends and making new ones … here are five other reasons to attend (feel free to add your own in the comments section):

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