The spotlight is on the Brno Student Chapter from the Czech Republic! The Brno Student Chapter was established in 2006. The focus of their activities is on batteries, electrochemical conversion and the storage research field.

On September 3, 2015, members of the Brno Chapter presented at the 16^th International Conference on Advanced Batteries, Accumulators and Fuel Cells, also known as ABAF. Proceedings of this meeting will be published in an edition of ECS Transactions. In addition, four members have submitted dissertation theses this year, which are scheduled to be presented and defended early 2016. Great job, Brno!

Want your student chapter in the spotlight? Send an email to beth.fisher@electrochem.org to tell us what makes your chapter stand out!

From solar energy to biofuels to hydrogen cars—sustainable solutions have become some of the hottest topics in the scientific community. While much of the focus in alternative forms of transportation has been automobiles (see Tesla and Toyota), ECS member Telpriore Gregory Tucker is shifting his attention in another direction: electric bikes. While Tucker’s bikes hold promise for the future of sustainable transportation, they could also potentially have a much greater impact.

“I don’t just sell electric bikes, I actually provide people with sustainable solutions,” says Tucker, founder of the Southwest Battery Bike Co.

Inspiration through education

The idea behind Tucker’s Phoenix, Arizona-based electric bike company started back in 2010 when he began volunteering with the youth at his church. As a mentoring program began to emerge, Tucker volunteered to addresses topics in STEM education.

“One of my personal goals is helping kids. I’ve been in a lot of programs as a child to help me get to where I am now,” says Tucker. “Giving back is important to me because I see a lot of kids in situations I’ve been in or environments that I’ve come from where a lot of the time, you don’t get that opportunity.”

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When it comes to alternative energy solutions, many researchers are looking to fuel cells as a promising solution. With high theoretical efficiency levels and their environmentally friendly qualities, fuel cells could be an answer to both the energy crisis and climate issues. However, researchers are still looking at how to build a fuel cell so that it is not only efficient, but also cost effective.

Sadia Kabir, ECS student member and PhD student at the University of New Mexico, recently published a paper in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society detailing her novel work on graphene-supported catalysts for fuel cells. Kabir is moving from theory to proof with her new research, showcasing an efficient and economically viable fuel cell.

The research was compiled by an interdisciplinary team with representatives from the University of New Mexico, University of Portiers, and Franunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology.

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Every year, around 60 percent of the energy produced in the United States is wasted. With a heavy reliance on traditional combustion cycles and the burning of fossil fuels, an astronomical amount of potentially usable energy dissipates into the environment as waste. However, there may be a way to harvest that waste energy without drastically changing the energy infrastructure.

Jaeho Lee, assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine and ECS member, recently presented a paper at the 228th ECS Meeting on the thermal transport in nanostructures targeting the applications of thermoelectric energy conversion. This innovative technology has the potential to be applied to the current energy infrastructure in an effort to harvest a percentage of the wasted energy.

“Thermoelectrics could allow us to harvest waste heat in any form,” says Lee. “We could talk about large-scale waste heat from factory combustion cycles, but it could also be as small as something we generate from our bodies.”

Thermoelectric Potential

Thermal energies exist everywhere. By harvesting waste energy, researchers are taking a complementary step toward a more sustainable energy infrastructure.

“Globally, we’re consuming a lot of energy,” says Lee. “The world population is continuously increasing. Not only that, our energy consumption rate is increasing.”

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With 1.6 billion people—a quarter of humanity—living without electricity, it is clear that something must be done to bring power and hope to areas of the developing world. Solar Hope, a nonprofit organization founded by Slobodan Petrovic of the Oregon Institute of Technology, is addressing that very issue of energy access by delivering solar power to areas of Africa.

Since its establishment in 2010, Solar Hope’s driving force has been to deliver the gift of light to areas of the world that are most in need.

“Electricity provides opportunities to save lives,” says Petrovic.

The organization relies solely on student volunteers and donations to implement life-saving projects. By installing alternative energy solutions, Solar Hope is able to power schools and hospitals, as well as provide a safe way for those living in these areas to receive electricity.

Electricity in Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of the population depends on wood, charcoal, and animal dung for its energy needs. Solar Hope’s implementation of electrochemical energy technologies can eliminate the danger of these types of energies, all while providing more efficient lighting to classrooms and giving hospitals enough power to adequately refrigerate vaccines.

“We’re delivering modern technology to improve the lives of citizens,” says Petrovic.

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Today kicked off the fifth international ECS Electrochemical Energy Summit. ECS President Dan Scherson opened the summit by welcoming attendees and putting these critical topics in renewable energy into perspective.

“The research you are doing directly addresses some of the major issues people are facing around the world,” says Scherson. “Our work is about the sustainability of the planet.”

Since its establishment in Boston in 2011, the summit has grown substantially in magnitude. This year, the keynote speaker was Franklin Orr, U.S. Under Secretary for Science and Energy. Among his many responsibilities, Orr oversees the Department of Energy’s (DOE) offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, as well as the office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.

The Future of Renewable Energy

“We’re really looking for a cost effective energy system, security for energy resources, and—even more importantly now than it was a few years ago—the environmental security,” says Orr.

Orr discussed the Quadrennial Technology Review, a recently published work by the DOE. Focusing on the energy infrastructure of the United States, the report seeks to find ways to modernize and make more secure the energy infrastructure.

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Researchers are not only looking for alternative ways to generate energy, they’re also looking for alternative ways to store it. From ECS member Vilas Pol’s packing peanut batteries to innovative flow batteries; scientists are looking for a way to securely store and deliver clean energy to the grid.

Now, engineers from McMaster University are turning trees into energy storage devices that could potentially power everything from small electronic devices to electric vehicles. With any luck, this technology could be taken to large-scale grid applications.

This from McMaster University:

The scientists are using cellulose, an organic compound found in plants, bacteria, algae and trees, to build more efficient and longer-lasting energy storage devices or capacitors. This development paves the way toward the production of lightweight, flexible, and high-power electronics, such as wearable devices, portable power supplies and hybrid and electric vehicles.

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Research out of the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) has yielded a novel micro-supercapacitor that has reportedly reached an energy density 1,000 times greater than current electrochemical capacitors.

This unmatched energy storage performance was made possible through a new electrode, producing density levels comparable to that of current lithium-ion micro-batteries.

Applications of this new technology could range from small electronics to autonomous sensor networks, opening the door to better water quality and air pollution monitoring.

“The extent of the electrode’s surface and the presence of pores of various sizes are key to a large storage capacity. We designed this new 3D electrode using an electrochemical process to synthesize a very porous gold structure. Ruthenium oxide, a pseudocapacitative material featuring high electrical conductivity and very good cyclability, was then inserted into the structure, resulting in unsurpassed energy density. For this type of application, component sizes are reduced to a few square millimeters, making it possible to use such expensive materials,” said Daniel Guay, ECS member and co-author of the study.

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The 2015 MacArthur Foundation geniuses have just been revealed, with seven prolific scientists receiving the prestigious title. Of those scientists, inorganic chemist Peidong Yang was named as one of this year’s geniuses for his pioneering work in nanomaterials science. His work is not only transformative for the science of semiconductor nanowires and nanowire photonics, it is also opening new paths for clean, renewable energy.

His research has led to innovative commercial productions for the conversion of waste heat to electricity, chemical sensors, and optical switches. Currently, Yang’s focus is directed toward artificial photosynthesis, where he and his research group have created a synthetic “leaf” that is a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria.

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Every year, around 300 million tires are thrown away in the United States alone. According to researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), those wasted tires could be used in supercapacitors for vehicles and the electric grid.

An ORNL team led by ECS member Parans Paranthaman has developed a technology that transforms scrap tires into supercapacitors, which could help power the nation and reduce the amount of waste to landfills simultaneously.

This from ORNL:

By employing proprietary pretreatment and processing, a team led by Parans Paranthaman has created flexible polymer carbon composite films as electrodes for supercapacitors. These devices are useful in applications for cars, buses and forklifts that require rapid charge and discharge cycles with high power and high energy density. Supercapacitors with this technology in electrodes saw just a 2 percent drop after 10,000 charge/discharge cycles.

Read the full article here.

“Those tires will eventually need to be discarded, and our supercapacitor applications can consume several tons of this waste,” Paranthaman said. “Combined with the technology we’ve licensed to two companies to convert scrap tires into carbon powders for batteries, we estimate consuming about 50 tons per day.”

With this novel process, old tires are supplying the key ingredient for supercapacitors.

“Each tire can produce carbon with a yield of about 50 percent with the ORNL process,” said Yury Gogotsi, ECS Fellow and co-author of the study. “If we were to recycle all of the scrap tires, which would translate into 1.5 million tons of carbon, which is half of the annual global production of graphite.”