Image: Kathy F. Atkinson, University of Delaware

Fuel cells are an important technology for the nation’s energy portfolio, offering a cleaner, more efficient alternative to combustion engines that utilize fossil fuels.

However, a team of researchers from the University of Delaware point out that a major challenge in the commercialization of fuel cells is the durability of the membrane, which tends to develop cracks that short is life during operation.

A new article published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, “Self-Healing Composite Membrane for Proton Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Applications,” aims to address the fuel cell membrane issue by developing a self-healing membrane, incorporating microcapsules prefilled with a Nafion solution.

“The microcapsules are designed to rupture when they encounter defects in the membrane and then release the prefilled Nafion solution to heal the defects in place,” says Liang Wang, past ECS member and co-author of the study.

Testing showed that the newly developed membrane and its self-healing functionality could greatly extend its useful life.

ECS celebrates 115 years of academic publishing

ECS is celebrating its 115th anniversary this year by giving the world a preview of what complete open access to peer-reviewed scientific research will look like. ECS will launch the first Free the Science Week, April 3-9, and take down the paywall to the entire ECS Digital Library, making over 132,000 scientific articles and abstracts free and accessible to everyone.

In April of 1902, a group of innovative young scientists sought a new forum to discuss, publish, and disseminate developments in the growing field of electrochemistry. They formed the American Electrochemical Society in Philadelphia, the home of independence and the first free public library in the United States; a history befitting an organization that aims to Free the Science around the globe.

More than 100 years later and operating now as ECS, scientists and engineers worldwide are still engaged in our thriving community. Now, as electrochemistry and sold state science & technology become ever more relevant to the future of our planet, holding the keys to innovation in renewable energy, biomedical, water, sanitation, communications, transportation, and infrastructure sectors, ECS is continuing to find ways to lead and influence our scientific field.

Free the Science Week is part of ECS’s long-term Free the Science initiative, which will provide free access to the peer-reviewed research in the entire ECS Digital Library, not just this week, but permanently.

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All ECS content will be accessible to over 8,200 institutions

ECS is partnering with Research4Life to provide accessibility to over 132,000 articles and abstracts published in the ECS Digital Library. All papers published by ECS will be free to access for more than 8,200 institutions in an effort to reduce the scientific knowledge gap between high-income and low- and middle-income countries by providing free or affordable access to critical scientific research.

The ECS Digital Library is home to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the flagship journal of ECS, published continuously since 1902, and to the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, ECS Electrochemistry Letters, ECS Solid State Letters, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, ECS Transactions, ECS Meeting Abstracts, ECS Proceedings Volumes and the ECS quarterly membership magazine, Interface.

The research published in ECS journals directly addresses the sustainability of our planet, with topics ranging from renewable energy storage and conversation to clean water and sanitation.

“Open access, especially in electrochemistry and solid state science, is an important goal for scientific and technological development and, quite simply, creating a better world.” says Roque Calvo, executive director of ECS. “ECS’s partnership with Research4Life is a step toward ensuring that everyone working on these issues, wherever they are in the world, has access to the latest research.”

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ECS is sponsoring the 1st International Semiconductor Conference for Global Challenges in Nanjing, China, July 16-17, 2017. Abstracts for this conference are due by May 1, 2017.

The conference aims to unite scientists around the world, fostering the exchange of ideas and addressing the global challenges and opportunities in semiconductor science and technology. Topics are set to span a wide spectrum of semiconductor researcher, focusing on five main topics: materials growth and characterization, electronic devices and applications, optoelectronic devices and applications, power devices and applications, and energy devices and systems.

“This conference features some of the top minds in semiconductor science and technology and provides a great opportunity for ECS to connect with researchers and bolster this field, say Roque Calvo, ECS executive director and member of the conference’s program committee. “It plays a significant role in addressing global concerns ranging from information security to energy infrastructure.”

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The 2017 ECS Twin Cities Section Symposium will take place Friday, April 7 in Saint Paul, MN. Attendance is free and includes talks, lunch, and the Innovation Center Tour showing hundreds of 3M technologies, and a poster session.

Register for the symposium.

Confirmed speakers:

Johna Leddy, University of Iowa
Electrochemically Silent Films on Electrodes – Means and Methods

Electrochemically inert films on electrodes alter properties of transport, selectivity, and kinetics to enable new devices and measurement methods. Examples include: density gradient polymers, which establish near steady state transport to the electrode surface and modification of Nafion® with triflate ligands in common organic solvents to enable voltammetry of lanthanide species.

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Symposium H01: State-of-the-Art Program on Compound Semiconductors 60 (SOTAPOCS 60)

Originating at the 166th ECS Meeting in New Orleans in 1984, the State-of-the-Art Program on Compound Semiconductors will be held for the 60th time at the upcoming ECS Meeting in National Harbor, MD, taking place from October 1-6, 2017. Don’t miss out on this anniversary event, make sure to submit your abstract no later than April 7, 2017.

Focus: Compound semiconductors are a significant enabler of numerous optoelectronic, high-speed, power, and sensor devices. The SOTAPOCS 60 symposium will address the most recent developments in inorganic compound semiconductor technology.

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The open access movement has bolstered content dissemination worldwide, but it has also led to the rise of “predatory publishers.” Instead of prioritizing the quality of the content, predatory journals exist to take advantage of the pay-to-publish open access system, enforcing a lax or non-existent peer review system while charging authors processing fees to publish their work.

Researchers who are eager to publish – specifically early-career researchers – often get caught up in the predatory publisher cycle because they’re either unaware of the practices or have not verified a journal’s reputation.

A new investigation, spearheaded by Nature, found that dozens of academic journals have been recruiting fake editors and offering them a place on their editorial board.

To begin the investigation, Nature submitted a fake application for an editor position to 360 journals, ranging from legitimate titles to suspected predatory journals. Of the 360 journals, all of which were listed in either Journal Citation Reports (JRC), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), or Beall’s list (possible predatory journals), 48 accepted the faux editor application.

The fictitious CV sent to publishers was that of Anna O. Szust (ozust being the polish word for fraud), featuring a slew of fake scientific degrees, credits on books that don’t exist, and not one legitimate citation to her name or any work indexed in the Web of Science or Scopus.

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This focus issue of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society is devoted to the mathematical modeling of electrochemical systems across multiple scales. Future advances in electrochemical systems will be greatly influenced by the need to design and control materials and processes using advanced simulation tools. Length scales in electrochemical applications can range from electronic to atomic to molecular to nanoscale to microscale to macroscale.

This issue, as well as regular symposia on multiscale modeling for electrochemical systems at ECS meetings, was majorly inspired by the work of Professor John Newman from the University of California-Berkeley. He dedicated his career to this topic, and he trained and influenced countless researchers on this topic over the years.

The deadline for submissions is April 2, 2017. Submit today!

All papers accepted for this focus issue will be published as open access at no cost to authors; the article processing charge (APC) will be waived.

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By: Joshua D. Rhodes, University of Texas at Austin

The electric grid is an amazing integrated system of machines spanning an entire continent. The National Academy of Engineering has called it one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century.

But it is also expensive. By my analysis, the current (depreciated) value of the U.S. electric grid, comprising power plants, wires, transformers and poles, is roughly US$1.5 to $2 trillion. To replace it would cost almost $5 trillion.

That means the U.S. electric infrastructure, which already contains trillions of dollars of sunk capital, will soon need significant ongoing investment just to keep things the way they are. A power plant built during the rapid expansion of the power sector in the decades after World War II is now 40 years old or older, long paid off, and likely needs to be replaced. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers just gave the entire energy infrastructure a barely passing grade of D+.

The current administration has vowed to invest heavily in infrastructure, which raises a number of questions with regard to the electric system: What should the energy grid of the future look like? How do we achieve a low-carbon energy supply? What will it cost?

Infrastructure seems to be an issue that can gather support from both sides of the aisle. But to make good decisions on spending, we need first to understand the value of the existing grid.

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By: Chenfeng Ke, Dartmouth College

Nanomachines are tiny molecules – more than 10,000 lined up side by side would be narrower than the diameter of a human hair – that can move when they receive an external stimulus. They can already deliver medication within a body and serve as computer memories at the microscopic level. But as machines go, they haven’t been able to do much physical work – until now.

My lab has used nano-sized building blocks to design a smart material that can perform work at a macroscopic scale, visible to the eye. A 3-D-printed lattice cube made out of polymer can lift 15 times its own weight – the equivalent of a human being lifting a car.

Nobel-winning roots are rotaxanes

The design of our new material is based on Nobel Prize-winning research that turned mechanically interlocked molecules into work-performing machines at nanoscale – things like molecular elevators and nanocars.

Rotaxanes are one of the most widely investigated of these molecules. These dumbbell-shaped molecules are capable of converting input energy – in the forms of light, heat or altered pH – into molecular movements. That’s how these kinds of molecular structures got the nickname “nanomachines.”

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