Don’t miss your chance to submit your abstract to the upcoming ECS biannual meeting in San Diego. The deadline is December 11!

Submit your abstract!

The 229th ECS meeting, being held May 29 – June 3 at the Hilton Bayfront and the San Diego Convention Center, is already gearing up to be an important and energizing get-together. This location, right in the heart of downtown San Diego, is the perfect setting to really immerse yourself in all that San Diego has to offer from world class dining, élite shopping, and a plethora of outdoor activities.

Of course, first you’ll have to tear yourself away from any of the 50+ technical symposia we will be running, including:

• Grand Challenges in Energy Conversion and Storage,
• Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing,
• The Brain and Electrochemistry,
• More-than-Moore 3,
• Medical and Point-of-Care Sensors,
• Future and Present Advanced Lithium Batteries and Beyond – a Symposium in Honor of Prof. Bruno Scrosati.

…just to name a few

Make sure to join us and present your research alongside of the leading experts in the fields of electrochemistry and solid state science. Check the Call for Papers and see what we have in store for you!

There’s less than two weeks left to submit your abstract.

Submit today!

ECS is currently accepting nominations for the ECS Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry Division’s (PAED) David C. Grahame Award, which was established in 1981 to encourage excellence in physical electrochemistry research and to stimulate publication of high quality research papers in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society.

This award recognizes Society members who have made outstanding contributions to the field and enhanced the scientific stature of the Society by the presentation of well-recognized papers in the journal and at Society meetings.

The award consists of a scroll, and a $1,500 prize. The recipient is required to attend the Society meeting at which the award is given and present a lecture in the general session or a division sponsored symposium. In the event that the award is made jointly to two or more co-recipients, each co-recipient will receive a scroll and a check for an amount to be decided by PAED.

Take a look at the award rules and submit a nomination form today!

About David C. Grahame
David C. Grahame was a pioneering American physical chemist and professor at Amherst College. He is well known for his ground-breaking paper entitled “The Electrical Double Layer and the Theory of Electrocapillarity” of 1947 which outlined the fundamental principles that govern electrical double layer formation at metal-solution interfaces.

Deadline: January 1, 2016

In light of U.N. Climate Talks in Paris and the crippling air pollution levels in China, Bill Nye continuing the good fight against climate change with his latest pitch for a solution against the catastrophic force.

His possible solution? Bubbles.

Through a simple experiment, Nye explores the possibility of purposely inducing bubbles to potentially help satisfy water and sanitation demands as well as reflect light into space—helping control the global temperature.

In the full interview with Yahoo! News Live, Nye also discusses a carbon fee, the real threats of climate change, and “climate deniers.” Check out the full video.

PS: Check out what ECS scientists are doing to address climate change!

A new form of carbon that has unprecedented strength and magnetism properties is making its mark in the world of materials science.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have recently developed a new phase of carbon called Q-carbon—an extraordinarily strong material that differs from carbon’s other two solid forms.

The first solid phase of carbon is graphite. Graphite is composed by lining up carbon atoms to form thin sheets, which results in a thin and flaky material. The other phase of carbon, diamond, occurs when carbon atoms form a rigid crystal lattice.

Third Phase of Carbon

“We’ve now created a third solid phase of carbon,” says Jay Narayan, lead author of the research. “The only place it may be found in the natural world would be possibly in the core of some planets.”

Q-carbon differs from both existing phases of carbon, with unique characteristics that researchers did not even think were possible prior to its development, such as its magnetic and glowing qualities. To fully understand its novel qualities, it’s essential to understand how Q-carbon was developed.

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Check out what’s trending in electrochemical and solid state science and technology! Read some of the most exciting and innovative papers that have been recently published in ECS’s journals.

The articles highlighted below are free! Follow the links to get the full-text version.

Towards Implantable Bio-Supercapacitors: Pseudocapacitance of Ruthenium Oxide Nanoparticles and Nanosheets in Acids, Buffered Solutions, and Bioelectrolyte
Since the early 1990s when ruthenium oxide-based electrode materials were found to have pseudocapacitive properties, they have been extensively investigated as promising supercapacitor electrodes. A best benchmark example is RuO₂·_nH₂O in combination with H₂SO₄ as the electrolyte, being able to operate with high voltage window, high capacitance and long cycle life. Read the rest.

Influence of the Altered Surface Layer on the Corrosion of AA5083
Aluminum alloys are increasingly replacing heavier materials in transportation, military and other applications, oftentimes in environments demanding of exceptional corrosion performance. In this regard, AA5083 has served as one of the alloys of choice for marine applications. Read the rest.

Advances in 3D Printing of Functional Nanomaterials
The intense and widespread interest in additive manufacturing techniques, including 3D printing, has resulted in an approximately $5 billion industry today with projections for growth to $15-20 billion by 2018. The commercial availability of 3D printing equipment, and the development of flexible additive manufacturing platforms in R&D laboratories, has provided a foundation for researchers to perform fundamental research in the materials science and engineering of polymers, organic materials, ceramics, inks, pastes, and other materials. Read the rest.

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Quantum dots may be just the thing to take renewable energy technology to the next level.

A team from MIT has recently developed a double film coating that has the ability to transform infrared light into visible light.

While that may not outwardly seem like a huge gain for the energy technology sector, the development has the potential to vastly improve efforts in renewable. Essentially, this research could help increase the amount of light a solar cell could capture. By capturing and using protons below their normal bandgap and thus converting the typically unused infrared light into use visible light, researchers could see efficiency levels of solar panels rise.

The researchers went about this development by placing two films on top of a plate of glass. The bottom film was comprised by using a type of quantum dot, while the top layer was made up of an organic molecule.

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Today, families, businesses, and communities around the world are joining together to celebrate generosity and to give through Giving Tuesday. Created in 2012, Giving Tuesday is now celebrated in several countries around the world, including Germany, Canada, Guatemala, and the United Kingdom.

Please join us in celebrating Giving Tuesday with a gift to ECS.

Your generosity enables us to:

• Support emerging scientists through fellowships, travel support, and student programs
• Advance electrochemistry and solid state science through comprehensive international meetings and high-quality publications
• Free the Science through complete open access to the ECS Digital Library, making all content from our journals freely available to all readers, while remaining free to publish for authors.

Please consider supporting ECS with your gift today.

ECS would like to thank all those who support our Society with their gifts of time, talent, and resources. Your generosity powers our robust technical meetings, provides critical support for emerging scientists, and promotes high-quality publication in our journals.

We would like to extend a special thank you to the individuals below for their donations in 2015.

Dr. Henri J.R. Maget	Dr. Shinji Fujimoto	Dr. Kenneth L. Menningen
The Jiang Family	Dr. Fernando H. Garzon	Dr. Shelley D. Minteer
Dr. James C. Acheson	Dr. Richard D. Goodin	Dr. Sudhan S. Misra
Dr. Radoslav Adzic	Dr. Koji Hashimoto	Dr. Herbert J. Moltzan
Dr. Rajaram Bhat	Dr. Dennis W. Hess	Dr. Takurou N. Murakami
Dr. Viola Ingrid Birss	Prof. Lloyd H. Hihara	Dr. Hironori Nakajima
Dr. William D. Brown	Dr. W. Jean Horkans	Dr. John S. Newman
Prof. Carlos R. Cabrera	Dr. Henry G. Hughes	Dr. Hoon-Jung OH
Mr. Roque J. Calvo	Dr. Earl C. Johns	Mr. John P. Olatta
Dr. Bryan Chin	Dr. Martin W. Kendig	Mr. Sennu Palanichamy
Dr. Emanuel I. Cooper	Dr. Zlata Kovac	Mr. Robert E. Palmer
Ms. Angela DeVito	Dr. Bruce Arthur Kowert	Dr. Thomas Popp
Dr. Howard D. Dewald	Dr. Simeon J. Krumbein	Dr. Cynthia A. Rice
Dr. Francesco Di Quarto	Dr. Michael Krumpelt	Dr. Robert F. Savinell
Dr. John F. Elter	Mr. Jose Larcin	Dr. Morton Schwartz
Dr. Ronald E. Enstrom	Dr. Arthur J. Learn	Dr. Irving Shain
Dr. Thomas Z. Fahidy	Dr. Peter A. Lewis	Dr. Steven Z. Shi
Dr. Fu-Ren F Fan	Dr. Bor Yann Liaw	Dr. Toshio Shibata
Dr. Larry R. Faulkner	Prof. Clovis A. Linkous	Dr. Alice C. Suroviec
Prof. Elena S Flitsiyan	Florian B. Mansfeld	Dr. Makoto Takahashi
Dr. Robert P. Frankenthal	Dr. Robert A. Mantz	Dr. E. Jennings Taylor
Dr. Hiroyuki Fujimori	Dr. Frederick Leon Marsh	Dr. Ken Tokunaga
Dr. Arthur Yelon	Dr. Fariaty Wong	Prof. Dr. Ryan Jeffrey White

Make a gift to ECS today!

If you have been considering joining ECS, now is the perfect time. The current membership rate is $95 plus $10 for division dues. These rates will increase to $115 and $15 as of January 2016, so don’t wait!

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should become an ECS member today:

• 100 full-text downloads from the ECS Digital Library ($3,300 value)
• Deep savings for ECS meeting registrations
• Inclusion in and access to the ECS member directory
• Free print subscription to Interface magazine

Check out the complete list of the membership benefits.

Join NOW with our simple online application, it will only take a couple of minutes and could save you hundreds of dollars.

Networking and knowledge exchange are at the heart of the newly established Munich student chapter.

“We wanted to establish an easy way to find people you could talk to when you encounter problems, want to vent your ideas about your experiments, or get some help,” says Thomas Mittermeier, chair of the student chapter and PhD student at Technische Universität München.

The student chapter, which pulls students from multiple universities across Munich, is working to assist in connecting themes and ideas happening in electrochemical research across the city. For Mittermeier and the rest of the students, it provides an avenue to transfer knowledge and bring more depth to research with ease.

“Since we’re from different individual research groups that all relate in some way to electrochemistry, the initial idea to start a student chapter was sparked from that,” Mittermeier says.

Establishing the Chapter

From ideas to research tools, the Munich student chapter is using an organized flow between universities and research groups to make research easier, producing better results. While the idea for this collaboration was sparked from the diversity and depth in research happening in Munich, the ideal platform was not always as apparent.

As a student member, Mittermeier regularly received ECS’s student newsletter. After seeing a list ranking universities by their number of student members, Mittermeier thought it was strange that his own university— Technische Universität München—was so high on the list but did not have a student chapter. With this, the ball started rolling for what would be the Munich student chapter.

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The space elevator: a concept first conceptualized in the late 19th century that has been highly disputed and contested over the years. Many scientists and research institutions believe that the space elevator can be actualized in our lifetime. Up until 2014, Google X’s Rapid Evaluation R&D team was still working on bringing this concept to life. However, the project came to a halt due to the lack of advancement in the field of carbon nanotubes—the material that many deemed necessary to meet the strength requirements for the space elevator.

But work in the field of carbon nanotubes pressed on, and in 2014 diamond nanothreads were first synthesized. With strength properties similar to that of carbon nanotubes, researchers are once again interested in the development of the space elevator.

After testing from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, researchers are putting a breath of fresh air into the space elevator with large scale diamond nanothreads, which may potentially be the world’s strongest substance.

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