Rodney Borup of the Los Alamos National Laboratory will be awarded the 2015 Energy Technology Division Research Award for his pioneering work in energy conversion and storage, specifically related to sustainability and fuel cells.

The prestigious award was established in 1992 to encourage excellence in energy related research.

Dr. Borup is widely recognized for his work in fuel cell transportation with such corporate and academic organizations such as General Motors and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). He joined LANL in 1994 as a post-doctoral researcher, where he would eventually move on to become the Program Manager for the Fuel Cells and Vehicle Technologies Program and Team Leader for Fuel Cells Program —titles which he currently holds.

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The Arizona Section welcomed members of the Valley of the Sun (Central Arizona) student chapter. ECS has a number of student chapters, which provide a venue to learn more about electrochemical and solid-state sciences.

The winter/spring meeting of the Arizona Section of ECS was held on January 26, 2015 at the University of Arizona. A total of twenty faculty and students from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University attended the meeting.

After a brief networking reception, Professor Srini Raghavan, Vice-Chair of the Arizona Section, introduced the guest speaker of the evening, Dr. Robert Savinell, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Following a brief description of the activities of ECS, Dr. Savinell gave a very informative talk: Iron-Based Flow Batteries for Grid-Scale Energy Storage.

Find out more about the Arizona Section.

ECS’s Energy Technology Division has presented three distinguished student awards to be accepted at the 227th ECS Meeting this May in Chicago, IL.

The Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award will be presented to William Mustain of the University of Connecticut.

William Mustain earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006, followed by two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in ECS President Paul Kohl’s research group at Georgia Tech. He went on to join the Department of Chemical & Bimolecular Engineering gat the University of Connecticut in 2008.

Over the past twelve years, Prof. Mustain has worked in several areas related to electrochemical energy generation and storage, including: catalysts and supports for proton exchange membrane and anion exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers, high capacity materials for Li-ion batteries, the purposeful use of carbonates in low temperature electrochemical systems, and the electrochemical conversion and utilizations of methane and CO₂.

Take a peak at his award address, “Near Room Temperature Conversion of Methane to Methanol.”

The Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award was established in 2011 to recognize and reward an outstanding young researcher in the field of energy technology.

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Metrohm USA and Metrohm Canada have announced Chad Atkins as the winner of the 2015 Young Chemist Award for his research in Raman spectroscopy to assess the degradation of stored red blood cells.

Atkins is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia where he works under the supervision of Robin Turner and Michael Blades. Here, he conducts his research in red blood cells to confirm viability prior to transfusion, which leads to a more successful patient outcome.

This is the third year Metrohm USA and Metrohm Canada have awarded the $10,000 Young Chemist Award.

“Metrohm has a history of giving back to the scientific community,” said Edward Colihan, President & CEO of Metrohm USA. “This year we saw a record number of applications for this award, demonstrating ingenuity and a passion for solving very practical problems. We are proud to support the next generation of scientists.”

Atkins will present a short overview of his work at Metrohm’s press conference at Pittcon 2015 in New Orleans. Take a look at his abstract.

The Young Chemist Award is open to all graduate, post-graduate and doctorate students residing and studying in the U.S. and Canada, who are performing novel research in the fields of titration, ion chromatography, spectroscopy and electrochemistry. For more details, click here.

ECS’s Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering Division (IE&EE) has presented two distinguished student awards to be accepted at the 227th ECS Meeting this May in Chicago, IL.

The IE&EE Student Achievement Award will be presented to Mohammad Mahdi Hasani-Sadrabadi of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Hasani-Sadrabadi is currently a graduate researcher studying bioengineering at Georgia Tech. Aside from his current studies, Hasani-Sadrabadi spent time at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, where he developed microfluidic platforms for controlled synthesis of polymeric nanoparticles. In 2007, he began his research on fuel cells while at Amirkabir University of Technology. He continued to establish the Biologically-Inspired Developing Advanced Research (BiDAR) group as an international collaborative research time. His main research area of interest is the development of bio-inspired nanomaterials for energy and biomedical applications. Take a peek at Hasani-Sadrabadi’s award address: “Anhydrous High-Proton Conductor Based on Ionic Nanopeapods.”

The IE&EE Student Achievement Award was established in 1989 to recognize promising young engineers and scientists in the field of electrochemical engineering and to encourage participants to initiate careers in this field. (more…)

Brightman (left) and Hinds (right) have developed a novel electrode to boost green hydrogen research.
Image: National Physical Laboratory

ECS members Edward Brightman and Gareth Hinds of the National Physical Laboratory have developed a novel reference electrode that will aid in the development of hydrogen production technologies for renewable energy storage.

Both Brightman and Hinds will present their work on reference electrodes at the 227th ECS Meeting in Chicago this May. (Get an advanced look at that presentation here.)

Brightman and Hinds’ work deals with polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysers (PEMWEs), which convert electricity and water into hydrogen and oxygen using two electrodes separated by a solid polymer electrolyte. While scientists have been looking and PEMWEs as a promising technology for some time now, researchers have been stifled in utilizing them due to the expensive catalyst materials needed and the general poor understanding of the degradation of these catalysts.

Now, Brightman and Hinds have tackled this issue by finding a way to produce PEMWEs with a cost-effective design and extended lifetime. This development allows for in situ measurement of the electrochemical process at the anode and the cathode.

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Prof. Sundaram has received degrees from the University of Kerala, Indian Institute of Science, and the Indian Institute of Technology.

Kalpathy B. Sundaram of the University of Central Florida will be awarded the 2015 Dielectric Science and Technology Division Thomas D. Callinan Award at the ECS 227th Meeting in Chicago this May.

This prestigious award was established by ECS in 1967 to encourage excellence in dielectrics and insulation investigations, as well as recognize outstanding research contributions in the field.

Prof. Sundaram will receive this award for showing excellence in his field through his research in thin film technology for low dielectric constant and high-k dielectric materials. Both academic and industrial researchers and engineers cite Prof. Sundaram’s contributions in solving fundamental problems with high-k materials.

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Long-time ECS member and past President of the Society (1985-1986), Dr. Alkire has been tremendously influential in the field of chemical engineering throughout his career.

His research activities include experimental investigations and mathematical modeling of localized corrosions, metal etching, high speed electrodeposition processes, porous electrodes, electro-organic synthesis, and plasma reactor design. Alkire received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering under ECS’s own Charles Tobias at the University of California Berkeley.

Take a moment to get to know him in this episode of ECS Talk.

Join Alkire and other top scientists in electrochemical and solid state science by joining the Society and attending our meetings!

And don’t forget to head over to the Digital Library to check out some of his published papers, including “Gravitational Effects on the Initial Stage of Cu Electrodeposition.”

Ralph Brodd has become a pillar of electrochemical science and technology over his 40 year career in the electrochemical energy conversion business.

He joined The Electrochemical Society in 1954 and served as President from 1981-1982. His ties to the Society run deep, beginning with his studies in 1950 at the University of Texas under ECS legend Norman Hackerman.

Take a moment to get to know him in this episode of ECS Talk.

Join Brodd and other top scientists in electrochemical and solid state science by joining the Society and attending our meetings!

Find openings in your area via the ECS job board.

ECS’s job board keeps you up-to-date with the latest career opportunities in electrochemical and solid state science. Check out the latest openings that have been added to the board.

P.S. Employers can post open positions for free!

Research Consultant
Final Coat – Akron, Ohio
Cutting edge Research Laboratory looking for experienced (4-5 yrs.) electrochemist with a background in corrosion research to join our team. Located in Akron, Ohio. Corrosion Research will be focused on steel/zinc systems. The candidate will direct the corrosion research and be able to design experiments, specify equipment needed, perform data analysis and have an understanding of data acquisition and programming.

Post Doc
Arizona State University – Tempe, Arizona
Prof. Karl Sieradzki has an immediate opening in his group for a postdoctoral researcher in the general area of electrochemistry/corrosion. Applicants should have a PhD in chemistry, chemical engineering or materials science and possess extensive knowledge of electrochemistry and relevant materials characterization techniques such as SEM, XRD, etc. Additional experience in non-aqueous electrochemistry (organic solvents and/or ionic liquids) and C++ coding would be preferred but not required for this position.