Inspired by the principles of the sodium ion battery, Kyle Smith (right) is re-appropriating technology to make huge strides in water desalination.
Image: L. Brian Stauffer

Battery applications range from powering electronic devices to storing energy harvested from renewable sources, but batteries have a range of applications beyond the obvious. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are taking existing battery technology and applying it to efforts in water desalination.

The researchers have published the open access article in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society.

“We are developing a device that will use the materials in batteries to take salt out of water with the smallest amount of energy that we can,” said Kyle Smith, ECS member and assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “One thing I’m excited about is that by publishing this paper, we’re introducing a new type of device to the battery community and to the desalination community.”

Water desalination technologies have flourished as water needs have grown globally. This could be linked to growing populations or drought. However, because of technical hurdles, wide-spread implementation of these technologies has been difficult. However, the new technologies developed could combat that issue by using electricity to draw charged salt ions out of the water.

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Chennupati Jagadish, distinguished professor at Australian National University

Chennupati Jagadish, long-time member and ECS Fellow, has recently been selected to receive Australia’s highest civilian honor. The Australian National University distingused professor has been named a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), for his “eminent service to physics and engineering, particularly in the field of nanotechnology, to education as a leading academic, researcher, author and mentor, and through executive roles with national and international scientific advisory institutions.”

(MORE: Read Jagadish’s published research in the ECS Digital Library.)

“I am humbled, honored, and grateful for this honor,” Jagadish, former recipient of the ECS Electronics and Photonics Divison Award, said. “This is a wonderful recognition for 25 plus years of work my research group at the Australian National University in the field of semiconductor optoelectronics and nanotechnology.”

Jagadish’s work takes the form of such novel innovations as lasers for telecommunications, increased efficiency solar cells, and artificial, trainable neurons.

Throughout his scientific career, Jagadish has published more than 620 research papers and five U.S. patents.
“They say that rest is for the weak,” Jangadish said. “I say, ‘Look, I’m having fun.’ Science is fun for me and when you’re having fun you don’t really look at how long you’re working.”

New material could help SOFCs operate more efficiently and cheaply.
Image: Bloom Energy

Solid oxide fuel cells may be producing cleaner energy at a more efficient level soon, thanks to a development at the University of Cambridge.

A new thin-film electrolyte material, developed by a team including ECS member Sergei Kalinin, has the potential to propel portable power sources due to its ability to achieve high performance levels and very low temperatures.

Advancing fuel cells

With a huge scientific focus shift toward developing new energy technologies, fuel cells have emerged as a big contender. Transitioning from a simple laboratory curiosity in the 19th century to a main contender for powering electric vehicles, researchers have dedicated much energy to building an efficient, cost effective fuel cell.

(MORE: Read “Battery and Fuel Cell Technology“)

This from University of Cambridge:

By using thin-film electrolyte layers, micro solid oxide fuel cells offer a concentrated energy source, with potential applications in portable power sources for electronic consumer or medical devices, or those that need uninterruptable power supplies such as those used by the military or in recreational vehicles.

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Image: Penn State

With the newly popular hoverboards bursting into flames, safety in batteries has made its way to the public spotlight. To increase lithium ion battery safety, one ECS member is working to develop batteries with built in sensors to warn users of potential problems.

Chao-Yang Wang, 19-year ECS member, is taking on the challenge of making the highly popular lithium ion battery safer in light of demands for smaller, more energy efficient devices.

“Li-ion batteries essentially provide portable power for everything,” says Wang. “Your cell phone charge can now last for a week instead of a day, but it’s still the same size. The battery has a lot more energy density, you are compressing more and more energy into a smaller space, and you have to be careful when you do that. Our job is to come up with solutions to provide safety while at the same time increasing performance.”

While lithium ion batteries are typically safe under normal conditions, the battery’s flammable electrolyte solution could overheat and catch fire if it is punctured or overcharged.

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From oil pipeline breaks to leaks in chemical plants, corrosion is one of the most damaging and costly naturally occurring events seen today. In order to better understand and prevent to corrosion process, John Scully, ECS member since and 2016 winner of the Society’s Linford Award, has teamed up with a multidisciplinary team to understand corrosion from the nano to the macroscale.

A new Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) has emerged with the mission of preventing corrosion. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, the ultimate goal of the project is to understand, predict, and control the role of minor elements on the early stages of corrosion in metal alloys.

At its core, corrosion is the degradation of materials due to electrochemical reactions with the environment. In addition to yielding safety issues, corrosion costs an expected $23 billion annually, according to the Department of Defense.

Not only can corrosion cause buildings and bridges to collapse, but corrosion o electrical outlets and medical implants can cause fires and blood poisoning.

In order to address this complex problems, Scully and others are creating a team comprised of those versed in electrochemistry, microscopy, tomography, and simulations.

Amanda Squicciarini, Membership Services intern.

My name is Amanda Squicciarini and I have been interning at The Electrochemical Society since this past September with Beth Fisher in Membership Services. I am a junior at The College of New Jersey, located just up the road from ECS’s Pennington, NJ headquarters where I am studying marketing and communications.

You have probably seen a couple of my blog posts, like 2015 ECS Outstanding Student Chapter or 5 Ways to Expand Your Student Chapter (if not, make sure you go check them out!). This was my first experience with Word Press and blogging in general, so it was exciting to see my work published on this blog that has 15,000 page views per month. Blogging was only one of the many learning opportunities I have had at ECS over the past four months. I was also responsible for creating student chapter newsletters, and processing their reimbursements. If you are a student chapter officer, you have probably received quite a few emails from me!

As you probably already know, ECS holds bi-annual meetings every spring and fall in places anywhere from Boston, MA, USA to Cancun, Mexico. During my internship, I was able to observe the behind the scenes hard work and hours of planning that goes into these meetings months before they actually happen. My internship had just begun a few weeks before the fall meeting, and I was able to see how much work needed to be done in order for the meeting to be successful. I felt that this was a special experience to be able to see an event of that magnitude being prepped and planned for (over 2,000 people from 46 different countries attended the 228^th ECS Meeting in Phoenix, AZ, USA this fall!). I even got to help by packing registration supplies, creating signs and making sure that the fellows were listed to be given their ribbons. Then after everyone returned from the meeting, I was in charge of organizing the data from the short courses to see if there were any ways to improve them for the next biannual meeting.

This internship was also my first experience in the non-profit sector. It was a great learning opportunity to be able to see how a non-profit functions. In addition, the history being endless within the society really appealed to the history buff in me. A task of mine was to scan in old files (as far back as 1903) so that the historic information is not lost when the papers are eventually recycled. Although this may seem like a very “typical” intern task, this task was essential due to the fact that members of ECS have been changing the world with their research for over 100 years. You may have heard of a guy named Thomas Edison… he was a member of ECS and I would say he changed the world! And hey, it’s pretty neat to be handling papers that are more than five times my age.

Overall, interning with The Electrochemical Society has been a great opportunity and I know I will be using the skills learned during my internship here, throughout my career. Thank you ECS staff and members for making me feel welcome, always being helpful and for teaching me something new on a daily basis. I could not have asked for a better internship experience.

Spring 2015 Internship Opportunity:

If you are seeking an internship opportunity for the spring semester, contact Beth Fisher, Membership Services Director, at beth.fisher@electrochem.org for more information. And no worries if you have not had much experience within the field of electrochemistry, I didn’t either, but you’ll pick it up quick and it is truly a great opportunity.

Dr. Chamberlain giving a lecture to the students and faculty at the IIT student chapter’s first event.

The Illinois Institute of Technology is one of ECS’s newest student chapters, and they held their first event on November 23, 2015. They received an excellent attendance rate of nearly one hundred students in addition to IIT faculty members and faculty from other near by institutions.  This event included the director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS), Dr. Jeffrey Chamberlain, who is also the deputy director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR). Dr. Chamberlain hosted a lecture that included information and a detailed analysis on the innovation of battery technologies.

Following the lecture, a Q&A session was held, which gave the students and faculty in attendance the opportunity to address questions produced from Dr. Chamberlain’s lecture. These questions included the topics of environmental issues, the life cycle of lithium ion batteries, development of lithium-air batteries and even government policy and funding. The formal lecture and Q&A session was followed with refreshments and continued discussion. The IIT student chapter is extremely grateful to Dr. Chamberlain for taking the time out of his very busy schedule to come and interact with the chapter at their first event.

Congratulations, IIT Student Chapter on a very successful kick-off event!

With already half of the academic year complete, it is time to think about summer opportunities to further your career!

Hadi Khani (left), an ECS Summer Fellowship 2015 recipient and his advisor, Dr. David Wipf.

The Electrochemical Society has been offering summer fellowships since early 1928. These awards were established to assist students during the summer months, June through September, in the pursuit of work in a field of interest to ECS. In order to qualify for these fellowships, one must be enrolled in a college or university in addition to being a member of ECS.  Here is the complete list of candidate qualifications and award rules.

Up to 4 recipients will be selected for 2016 and will receive up to $5,000!

If you meet the requirements, apply for an ECS Summer Fellowship today! The deadline is January 15, 2016.

Success story
In 2013, Carlo Santoro received the F.M. Beckett Summer Fellowship from ECS. Through that fellowship, he connected with Dr. Plamen Atanassov at the University of New Mexico to study enzymes and their integration into microbial systems.

“I spent a summer at the University of New Mexico learning and integrating enzymes into a microbial system to make a hybrid system. It was interesting; it was a way to learn new things, a way to interact with people in different fields, to learn more. It was a very, very great experience.”—Carlo Santoro, 2013 summer fellowship recipient

Now, Dr. Santoro is working alongside Dr. Atanassov and some of the world’s best microbiologists to develop bio-catalytic materials that will simultaneously decontaminate wastewater and generate energy in a microbial biofuel cell.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the Colin Garfield Fink Summer Fellowship to see if you qualify!

Robert Savinell, editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society

Since 1902, ECS’s flagship journal—the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) originally published as Transactions of The Electrochemical Society—has published some of the best and most innovative research in the field of electrochemical science and technology.

With a historical tradition of scientific excellence and commitment to the pursuit and open exchange of scientific knowledge, JES has accumulated papers through the years that have long-lasting merit. In an effort to preserve the voices of distinguished scientists and engineers who have helped shape our world, the Society implemented the ECS Digital Library Leadership Collection.

Robert Savinell, professor at Case Western Reserve University, is one of the newest faces to conserve this highly significant research. Through a generous gift to the ECS Digital Library, The Robert F. Savinell Collection has been established and the Society has taken yet another step toward its commitment to open access publishing.

Preserving the science of the past

“Most of the papers that get published in the ECS journals have long-lasting value,” says Savinell, editor of JES. “They’re more than just recent news blurbs that introduce a new idea that in a few years will fade away.”

Through a strong editorial and peer-review process, the papers published in JES are not only topically relevant when they are published, but also carry a fundamental insight that applies more broadly than their specific application.

“I think there’s a lot of value in that kind of information that’s being archived forever,” Savinell says.

Beyond the preservation of these timeless voices, Savinell’s gift to the leadership collection supports ECS’s commitment to open access publishing—something Savinell sees as the ultimate future of scholarly publications.

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Top row (l to r): Mark Sivak, Samantha Brain, Zachary Widel Middle row: Jeromy Rech, Dr. Jason Keleher, Richard Wiencek Third row: Julianne Truffa, Lisa Janes, Jacob Murray Bottom row: Amy Mlynarski

From outreach to knowledge acquisition, the newly established Lewis University student chapter is paving a path to instill a new-found enthusiasm in electrochemical science and technology.

“We will be able to help foster a sense of excitement for electrochemistry and begin to inspire others, in the same way that we were inspired,” says Jeromy Rech, chair of the Lewis University student chapter.

The inspiration behind starting the student chapter began in the late spring of this year, when a group of students from Lewis University’s Keleher Research Group presented at the 227th ECS Meeting in Chicago, IL. Upon meeting other ECS student members that initiated student chapters of their own, Rech and his group knew that forming a chapter at Lewis University was in the cards.

“We saw this as a great opportunity to begin to network and cultivate an academic relationship with other students who share similar passions,” Rech says.

Once the chapter was approved at the 228th ECS Meeting in Phoenix, AZ, the group immediately put the ball in motion. From volunteering as judges in an annual science fair to hosting the capstone presentations for chemistry majors, the chapter is on track with its goals of outreach and knowledge acquisition.

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