According to some scientists, humans are born with an innate sixth sense. And no, it’s not the ability to see ghosts like in the 1999 horror film. It’s the sense of proprioception: the perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body. This sense is what helps us coordinate our movements. For example, if you close your eyes, there remains a sense of awareness of where your muscles and body parts are located, the distance between them, and the perception of how they’re moving relative to one another, according to SingularityHub.

This complex sense is one that is difficult to recreate in robots, as solid state sensors traditionally used in robotics are unable to capture the high-dimensional deformations of soft systems. However, embedded soft resistive sensors have the potential to address this challenge. Using this approach, scientists are getting closer to overcoming the challenge with new techniques that involve an array of sensory material and machine-learning algorithms. (more…)

Hydrogen gas: it’s storable, can refuel a car in minutes (versus batteries which can take hours to recharge), and its waste product is water. It is the holy grail of clean-energy advocates.

The only problem is that the electrolyzers that make hydrogen from renewable energy are quite expensive. But, that soon may change, according to Ars Technica.

According to a new paper in Nature Energy, researchers from universities in Germany and at Stanford University have created a financial model for a wind farm connected to a hydrogen electrolyzer. (more…)

Shirley Meng

Inspired by her father, motivated by curiosity, and driven by her passion for connecting people, Shirley Meng, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, discovered her love for science.

Although, she had originally thought her interests would lead her to pursue another path, a career in law.

However, because of the instability of the law system in China, where Meng is originally from, her father encouraged Meng to pursue other opportunities. That’s when she began considering a career in the sciences. (more…)

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Topic Close-up #3

Symposium Z04: Electrochemistry in Space

Symposium focus: Recent growth in space-related activities have presented numerous opportunities for electrochemistry in space. Space exploration, resource utilization, environmental controls, and satellite operation present many technical challenges and opportunities where electrochemistry will play a critical role. This inaugural symposium on Electrochemistry in Space will bring together researchers and technology developers across a broad array of disciplines to discuss recent developments in technology and science related to electrochemistry in space. Interested contributors are encouraged to submit relevant abstracts in topics including, but not limited to, electrochemical power sources, sensors, processes for environmental controls, energy storage, and in situ resource utilization. (more…)

David Wood III, A04 symposium organizer.

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Topic Close-up #2

Symposium A04: Advanced Manufacturing Methods for Energy Storage Devices 2

Symposium Focus: The Advanced Manufacturing Methods for Energy Storage Devices 2 symposium will be held at the 236th ECS meeting in Atlanta, GA. It is the second installment of the series and was first held at the 232nd ECS meeting in fall 2017. The organizers are expecting up to three times as many presentations as the first installment, and there will be a variety of invited speakers from industry, universities, and government laboratories.

This symposium will cover energy efficient, high-speed, and smart manufacturing methods that are rapidly being developed for the production of advanced energy storage electrodes and full cells, including the integration of 3-D printing and additive manufacturing processes. Novel coating architectures are being designed that include patterned electrodes with 2-D and 3-D features, and electrode processing methodologies are being developed that significantly reduce or eliminate the amount of organic solvent, or completely eliminate the liquid phase altogether. Cell manufacturing methods and associated componentry are being researched that significantly reduce the mass of inactive material (binders, separators, current collectors, etc.). When combined, these technologies reduce both the operating and plant capital expenditures while simultaneously improving cell performance, energy density, and power density. (more…)

Chuanfang (John) Zhang, Valeria Nicolosi, and Sang-Hoon Park. Credit: Naoise Culhane

Have you ever wished you could increase your cellphone battery life? Well, that technology may very well already be here.

Researchers from AMBER, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering, at Trinity College Dublin, have announced the development of a new material which offers the potential to improve battery life in everyday electronics, like smartphones, according to Irish Tech News.

The discovery could mean that the average phone battery life, roughly 10 hours of talk time, could increase to 30-40 hours.

MXenes, an ink-based nanomaterial, not only significantly improves battery life, but it also offers its batteries the flexibility to become smaller in size, without losing performance. (more…)

A researcher at Georgia Tech holds a perovskite-based solar cell. Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech

Perovskite-based solar cells are all around great. They offer energy efficiencies similar to those of traditional silicon-based cells, are lightweight, simple and cheap to produce, and offer physical flexibility that could unlock a wide new range of installation methods and places, according to Georgia Teach Research Horizons.

The only problem: figuring out how to produce perovskite-based energy devices that last longer than a couple of months.

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California San Diego, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be closer to solving that problem. (more…)

Gold nanowires grown in the Rice University lab. Credit: Zubarev Research Group/Rice University

Vitamin C offers countless benefits. It helps protect against immune system deficiencies, cardiovascular disease, can strengthen hair, and helps prevent wrinkles. Not to mention, it can also turn stubby gold nanorods into gold nanowires of impressive length.

According to ScienceDaily, scientists at Rice University recently discovered that all it takes is a dose of vitamin C to promote gold nanowires growth, making the wires valuable for sensing, diagnostic, imaging, and therapeutic applications.

According to Eugene Zubarev, a Rice lab chemist who worked on the study, and Bishnu Khanal, a Rice chemistry alumnus and lead author of the study, nanorods measured 25 nanometers thick at the start of the process, maintaining their widths as they grew in height. An important point, as the wires’ aspect ratio—length over width—dictates how well they absorb and emit light and how they conduct electrons. (more…)

Kang Xu, lead author.

“What is the most ideal [solid-electrolyte interphase] SEI or interphase that would enable the next generation of the battery chemistries?”

It was a question that had been lingering in the minds of Kang Xu, fellow of US Army Research Laboratory and team leader; Chunsheng Wang, University of Maryland chemical and biomolecular engineering department professor, as well as one of the most cited researchers of 2018; and Ying Shirley Meng, University of California, San Diego nanoengineering professor, fellow of The Electrochemical Society, and associate director of the International Battery Association.

Together, the trio set out to pursue this question, resulting in the publication of their paper “Perspective—Fluorinating Interphases.” (more…)

Since The Electrochemical Society’s inception in 1902, the Society has stood for the advancement of electrochemical and solid state science and technology. As part of this mission, ECS is working to Free the Science by making all content from ECS journals free and fully accessible to the public: an initiative that is gaining traction and attention in the scholarly publishing community.

UCL’s Town Hall meeting on Plan S

On January 8, the University College London (UCL) held a town hall meeting to discuss the principles of Plan S, a plan that supports open access initiatives like Free the Science, which aims to make all research funded by public grants provided by cOAlition S funders openly available by 2020.

The plan has since received some backlash and concerns from the academic and scholarly publishing communities, including UCL, the host of the Plan S discussion. (more…)