ECS recognizes outstanding technical achievements in electrochemistry and solid-state science and technology through its Honors & Awards program. There are many deserving members of the High Temperature Materials Division among us and this is an opportunity to highlight their contributions.

We are currently accepting nominations for the following award:

HTM Outstanding Achievement Award was established in 1984 to recognize excellence in high temperature materials research and outstanding technical contributions to the field of high temperature materials science. The award consists of a scroll, a $1,000 prize and complimentary meeting registration. The recipient is required to attend the designated Society meeting to receive the award and to give a lecture to the HTM Division. The recipient is eligible for up to $1,000 toward travel expenses to facilitate attendance.

Please review the award rules carefully before completing the application.

Nomination Deadline: January 1, 2016

The Electrochemical Society with Toyota North America
2016-2017 ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship
for Projects in Green Energy Technology

Proposal Submission Deadline: January 21, 2016

ECS, in partnership with the Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA), a division of Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc. (TEMA), is requesting proposals from young professors and scholars pursuing innovative electrochemical research in green energy technology.

Global development of industry and technology in the 20th century, increased production of vehicles and the growing population have resulted in massive consumption of fossil fuels. Today, the automotive industry faces three challenges regarding environmental and energy issues: (1) finding a viable alternative energy source as a replacement for oil, (2) reducing CO2 emissions and (3) preventing air pollution. Although the demand for oil alternatives—such as natural gas, electricity and hydrogen—may grow, each alternative energy source has its disadvantages. Currently, oil remains the main source of automotive fuel; however, further research and development of alternative energies may bring change.

Fellowship Objectives and Content

The purpose of the ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship is to encourage young professors and scholars to pursue research in green energy technology that may promote the development of next-generation vehicles capable of utilizing alternative fuels. Electrochemical research has already informed the development and improvement of innovative batteries, electrocatalysts, photovoltaics and fuel cells.

Through this fellowship, ECS and TRINA hope to see more innovative and unconventional technologies borne from electrochemical research.

The fellowship will be awarded to a minimum of one candidate annually. Winners will receive a restricted grant of no less than $50,000 to conduct the research outlined in their proposal within one year. Winners will also receive a one-year complimentary ECS membership as well as the opportunity to present and/or publish their research with ECS.

Meet last year’s winners.

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In 2013, Carlo Santoro received the F.M. Beckett Summer Fellowship from ECS. Through that fellowship, he connected with Dr. Plamen Atanassov at the University of New Mexico to study enzymes and their integration into microbial systems.

Now, Dr. Santoro is working alongside Dr. Atanassov and some of the world’s best microbiologists to develop bio-catalytic materials that will simultaneously decontaminate wastewater and generate energy in a microbial biofuel cell.

Carlo’s story parallels the experiences many of us have had in our own careers. Whether it was a summer fellowship or an important networking event, many of us have benefited from opportunities that impacted not only our academic careers, but our future prospects as well.

“I spent a summer at the University of New Mexico learning and integrating enzymes into a microbial system to make a hybrid system. It was interesting; it was a way to learn new things, a way to interact with people in different fields, to learn more. It was a very, very great experience.”
-Carlo Santoro
2013 summer fellowship recipient

At ECS, we recognize that today’s emerging scientists are the next generation of leaders in our field. They will continue to make discoveries and shape our science long into the future. But they need our support now to get there.

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Bill Gates—tech mogul, business magnate, and philanthropist for all things good—recently spoke to CNN about the newest technology he believes could transform the world’s energy infrastructure: solar fuels.

Solar fuels have the ability to address energy storage intermittency issues, which is currently one of the biggest challenges in sustainable energy technology according to Gates.

Nate Lewis, ECS member since 1982, is one of the leading scientists at the forefront of solar fuel research. Taking inspiration from nature, Lewis and his team aspire to mimic the naturally occurring process of photosynthesis but with higher efficiency levels. Through taking the energy of the sun and storing it in chemical fuels, Lewis and other researchers in the field are propelling the vision of a clean, efficient, and affordable future of energy.

A new issue of ECS Transactions (ECST) has just been published. Browse Volume 70, Issue 1 of ECST ABAF 15 here. The 16th International Conference on Advanced Batteries, Accumulators and Fuel Cells (ABAF 2015) was held in Brno, Czech Republic, on August 30-September 3, 2015

For additional information on ECS Transactions and for all published issues, please visit the ECST homepage.

Dr. Chamberlain giving a lecture to the students and faculty at the IIT student chapter’s first event.

The Illinois Institute of Technology is one of ECS’s newest student chapters, and they held their first event on November 23, 2015. They received an excellent attendance rate of nearly one hundred students in addition to IIT faculty members and faculty from other near by institutions.  This event included the director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS), Dr. Jeffrey Chamberlain, who is also the deputy director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR). Dr. Chamberlain hosted a lecture that included information and a detailed analysis on the innovation of battery technologies.

Following the lecture, a Q&A session was held, which gave the students and faculty in attendance the opportunity to address questions produced from Dr. Chamberlain’s lecture. These questions included the topics of environmental issues, the life cycle of lithium ion batteries, development of lithium-air batteries and even government policy and funding. The formal lecture and Q&A session was followed with refreshments and continued discussion. The IIT student chapter is extremely grateful to Dr. Chamberlain for taking the time out of his very busy schedule to come and interact with the chapter at their first event.

Congratulations, IIT Student Chapter on a very successful kick-off event!

We are currently accepting nominations for the prestigious honor of Fellow of The Electrochemical Society. This award was established in 1989 for advanced individual technological contributions in the field of electrochemical and solid-state science and technology and for active membership and involvement in the affairs of The Electrochemical Society. The award consists of a scroll, lapel pin and eternal bragging rights.

Now is the time to look around the room at your colleagues, recall that Division Member who you shared a meal with at our last bi-annual meeting or the committee member who you work with to further the ECS mission and question whether s/he is a Fellow. You may be very surprised at who has achieved this recognition and who has not. View the full list of ECS Fellows and take a moment to nominate the 2016 class.

Read the rules and submit a nomination form today.

Application Deadline: February 1, 2016.

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With already half of the academic year complete, it is time to think about summer opportunities to further your career!

Hadi Khani (left), an ECS Summer Fellowship 2015 recipient and his advisor, Dr. David Wipf.

The Electrochemical Society has been offering summer fellowships since early 1928. These awards were established to assist students during the summer months, June through September, in the pursuit of work in a field of interest to ECS. In order to qualify for these fellowships, one must be enrolled in a college or university in addition to being a member of ECS.  Here is the complete list of candidate qualifications and award rules.

Up to 4 recipients will be selected for 2016 and will receive up to $5,000!

If you meet the requirements, apply for an ECS Summer Fellowship today! The deadline is January 15, 2016.

Success story
In 2013, Carlo Santoro received the F.M. Beckett Summer Fellowship from ECS. Through that fellowship, he connected with Dr. Plamen Atanassov at the University of New Mexico to study enzymes and their integration into microbial systems.

“I spent a summer at the University of New Mexico learning and integrating enzymes into a microbial system to make a hybrid system. It was interesting; it was a way to learn new things, a way to interact with people in different fields, to learn more. It was a very, very great experience.”—Carlo Santoro, 2013 summer fellowship recipient

Now, Dr. Santoro is working alongside Dr. Atanassov and some of the world’s best microbiologists to develop bio-catalytic materials that will simultaneously decontaminate wastewater and generate energy in a microbial biofuel cell.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the Colin Garfield Fink Summer Fellowship to see if you qualify!

Robert Savinell, editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society

Since 1902, ECS’s flagship journal—the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) originally published as Transactions of The Electrochemical Society—has published some of the best and most innovative research in the field of electrochemical science and technology.

With a historical tradition of scientific excellence and commitment to the pursuit and open exchange of scientific knowledge, JES has accumulated papers through the years that have long-lasting merit. In an effort to preserve the voices of distinguished scientists and engineers who have helped shape our world, the Society implemented the ECS Digital Library Leadership Collection.

Robert Savinell, professor at Case Western Reserve University, is one of the newest faces to conserve this highly significant research. Through a generous gift to the ECS Digital Library, The Robert F. Savinell Collection has been established and the Society has taken yet another step toward its commitment to open access publishing.

Preserving the science of the past

“Most of the papers that get published in the ECS journals have long-lasting value,” says Savinell, editor of JES. “They’re more than just recent news blurbs that introduce a new idea that in a few years will fade away.”

Through a strong editorial and peer-review process, the papers published in JES are not only topically relevant when they are published, but also carry a fundamental insight that applies more broadly than their specific application.

“I think there’s a lot of value in that kind of information that’s being archived forever,” Savinell says.

Beyond the preservation of these timeless voices, Savinell’s gift to the leadership collection supports ECS’s commitment to open access publishing—something Savinell sees as the ultimate future of scholarly publications.

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The world’s most expensive material is being created in a lab and it’s going for $33,000 per 200 micrograms. To put that in perspective, that’s an astonishing $4.2 billion an ounce.

The novel material consists of molecular units called endohedral fullerenes, which are essentially a cage of carbon atoms containing nitrogen atoms.

Developers and scientists behind the material are focused on implementing the endohedral fullerenes into the development of a small, portable atomic clock. The atomic clock is the most accurate time-keeping system in the world and could assist in the accuracy of everything from a GPS to an automatic car.

“Imagine a minaturised atomic clock that you could carry around in your smartphone,” says Kriakos Porfyrakis, scientist working on the development of the material. “This is the next revolution for mobile.”

Aside from impacting cellphone technology, Porfyrakis expects the material to change transportation in a big way.

ICYMI: Learn about the early history of the Buckyball.

“There will be lots of applications for this technology,” says Lucius Cary, director of Oxford Technology SEIS fund. “The most obvious is in controlling autonomous vehicles. If two cars are coming towards each other on a country lane, knowing where they are to within 2m is not enough but to 1mm it is enough.”