By: Jeffrey Gardner, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

When people hear about prospecting, they might imagine old forty-niners (miners) with pickaxes hunting for gold, or maybe an agent for the San Francisco 49ers (football team) scouting for new talent. In my lab we do another version, called bio-prospecting – searching for useful substances from natural sources. Bio-prospecting has produced many valuable products, including anti-cancer drugs derived from plants and extremely strong silks spun by tropical spiders.

Our work focuses on enzymes, which are proteins that speed up chemical reactions. We are looking for new and powerful enzymes that can break apart polysaccharides – common molecules that consist of long chains of sugars. Polysaccharides are extremely abundant in the fruits and vegetables that we eat, the cotton clothes we wear and the lumber we use to build houses.

Enzymes that can break down polysaccharides have many uses – for example, in detergents that dissolve stains on clothes. Similar types of enzymes can also be used to release sugars found in plants, which can then be used for manufacturing biodegradeable plastic.

In my lab, we are searching for new enzymes that could improve biotechnology for making renewable fuels and chemicals.

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Tech Highlights was prepared by Colm Glynn and David McNulty of University College Cork, Ireland, David Enos of Sandia National Laboratories, Zenghe Liu of Verily Life Science, and Donald Pile of Rolled-Ribbon Battery Company. Each article highlighted here is available free online.

A new issue of ECS Transactions (ECST) has just been published from the XXXI National Congress of the Mexican Society of Electrochemistry/9th Meeting of the ECS Mexican Section.

The papers in this issue of ECST were presented in Monterrey, Mexico on May 30, 2016 – June 3, 2016. ECST Volume 76, Issue 1 can be found here.

Full text PDF issues of ECST can also be purchased in the ECS ONLINE STORE as full-text digital downloads.

Scientists studying climate change have long debated exactly how much hotter Earth will become given certain amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Models predicting this “climate sensitivity” number may be closer to the observed reality than some previously thought, according to a new study.

Observations in the past decade seemed to suggest a value lower than predicted by models. But the new study shows that two leading methods for calculating how hot the planet will get are not as far apart as they have appeared.

In climate science, the climate sensitivity is how much the surface air temperature will increase if you double carbon dioxide from pre-Industrial levels and then wait a very long time for the Earth’s temperature to fully adjust. Recent observations predicted that the climate sensitivity might be less than that suggested by models.

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ECS is proud to partner with the March for Science, a global event with almost 400 satellite marches taking place on April 22.

ECS has fully endorsed the March’s non-partisan, educational, and diversity goals and encourages its members to adhere to these values as they get involved in one of the numerous marches taking place throughout the world. You can help represent ECS at your march by using our #FreetheScience graphic on your signs.

And before you take to the streets on Earth Day, check out a few essential reads on the origins of the march and what those taking part hope to accomplish.

From the lab to the streets

Mother Jones sits down with the organizers of the march and look at the reasons behind the mobilization efforts, including pulling scientific funding, budgets cuts to science agencies, downsizing or outright eliminating science advisors in government, and roll backs of agency work based on public health research.

The organizers discuss their goals of championing more public engagement, evidence-based policies, and general science advocacy while balancing the over politicization of the field.

“I would actually argue that science is political,” Valorie Aquino, co-organizer of the march, tells Mother Jones. “Scientific integrity goes beyond one person eroding it. It hits across both sides of the aisle and people who aren’t necessarily affiliated with a political party at all.”

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Society, division, and section awards

ECS is pleased to announce the 11 award winners for the Society’s spring biannual meeting.

All awards will be presented at the upcoming 231st ECS Meeting, taking place May 28-June 1, 2017 in New Orleans, LA, where ECS will celebrate its 115th anniversary.

“ECS has a rich history of providing award recognition for scientists and engineers in our field,” says Roque Calvo, executive director of ECS. “The awards being presented at the 231st ECS Meeting highlight some of the most influential researchers in the fields of electrochemical and solid state science.”

Doron Aurbach will receive the 2017 Allen J. Bard Award in Electrochemical Science in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the field. Aurbach is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where he and his team research and develop rechargeable high energy density batteries and supercapacitors, as well as novel electro-analytical and spectro-electrochemical methods for sensitive electrochemical systems. He has published more than 540 papers and is a technical editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES).

“The Electrochemical Society is my scientific home,” Aurbach says. “I’ve been affiliated with the Society from the beginning of my career, nearly 35 years ago. Receiving this award is one of the greatest moments of my scientific career.”

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By: Petr Vanýsek

The discovery of an electric arc can be tied to the use of an electrochemical energy source. Sir Humphry Davy described in 1800 an electric discharge using electrochemical cells¹ that produced what we would call a spark, rather than an arc. However, in 1808, using an electrochemical battery containing 2000 plates of copper and zinc, he demonstrated an electric arc 8cm long. Davy is also credited with naming the phenomenon an arc (Fig. 1). An electric arc was also discovered independently in 1802 by Russian physicist Vasily Petrov, who also proposed various possible applications including arc welding. There was a long gap between the discovery of the electric arc and putting it to use.

Electrochemical cells were not a practical source to supply a sustained high current for an electric arc. A useful application of this low voltage and high current arc discharge became possible only once mechanical generators were constructed. Charles Francis Brush developed a dynamo, an electric generator, in 1878, that was able to supply electricity for his design of arc lights. Those were deployed first in Philadelphia and by 1881 a number of cities had electric arc public lights. Once that happened, the application and new discoveries for the use of the electric arc followed. Electric arc for illumination was certainly in the forefront. First, electric light extended greatly the human activities into the night and second, public street electric lights, attracting masses of spectators, were the source of admiration, inspiration, and no doubt, more invention.

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ECS now has an app for your mobile device. Follow the latest research published in ECS journals, the newest Redcat blog posts, and get instant access to the ECS podcasts and videos all in one place. It also includes the meeting scheduler for the upcoming ECS biannual meeting.

Go to the App Store or Google Play and search “ECS Mobile.”

Ajit Khosla is a professor at Yamagata University in Yonezawa, Japan and a visiting professor at San Diego State University’s College of Engineering. Khosla’s work in the area of nano-microsystems has resulted in more than 100 scientific and academic contributions. Khosla has recently been named associate editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES).

The Electrochemical Society: What do you hope to accomplish in your role as associate editor?

Ajit Khosla: As an associate editor, I hope to accomplish quick and fair peer review process, as little as three weeks from submission. I would like to encourage and convince scientists and scholars from all over the world, including ones who are presenting their work at ECS meetings, to strongly consider submitting full-length journal papers to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. I will also be focusing on to soliciting high-quality papers in the sensor topical interest area in biosensors, micro-nano fabricated sensors, systems & devices for healthcare, and environmental monitoring.

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When a battery is used, electrically charged ions travel between electrodes, causing those electrodes to shrink and swell. For some time, researchers have wondered why the electrode materials – which are fairly brittle – don’t crack in the expansion and contraction styles.

Now, a team of researchers from MIT, led by ECS member Yet-Ming Chiang, may have found the answer to this mystery.

This from MIT:

While the electrode materials are normally crystalline, with all their atoms neatly arranged in a regular, repetitive array, when they undergo the charging or discharging process, they are transformed into a disordered, glass-like phase that can accommodate the strain of the dimensional changes.

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