Small-scale device provides easy “plug-and-play” testing of molecules and materials for artificial photosynthesis and fuel cell technologies.
Image: Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis

Scientists have developed a small-scale device that can aid in the advancement of artificial photosynthesis and fuel cell technologies.

The new device provides an easy “plug-and-play” microfluidic test-bed to evaluate materials for electrochemical energy conversion systems. Researchers will now be able to test small amounts of molecules and materials before producing a full-scale device to insure new devices will provide high energy density.

Sophia Haussener and Joel Ager, published ECS authors and past members, were two of the researchers that worked on the project for the U.S. Department of Energy. (Check out Haussener’s past research on photoelectrochemical water-splitting and Ager’s work in electron diffraction.)

This from U.S. Department of Energy:

As all functional components in this microfluidic test-bed can be easily exchanged, the performance of various components in the integrated system can be quickly assessed and tailored for optimization. The initial experiments and modeling were performed for water electrolysis; however, the system can be readily adapted to study proposed artificial photosynthesis and fuel cell technologies.

Read the full article here.

The researchers believe that this technology will be easily adaptable to other technologies, such as solar-fuel generators. Development of such devices may significantly accelerate due to the new ability to assess performance at an early stage.

Wind energy has seen a lot of positive momentum over the past few years in a global effort to help facilitate change in the energy infrastructure. With over $100 billion invested in wind energy in 2014 alone, this technology is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world. Today we’re celebrating Global Wind Day by looking at the innovation that has happened in this sector and taking a peek at what is yet to come.

Over the years, wind energy has seen some dramatic changes. In the 1980s, California was the hub of all wind energy with 90 percent of the world’s installed wind energy capacity. Now, countries such as China, Germany, Spain, India, and the United States have all shifted a substantial percentage of energy needs toward wind. In just a short 12-year period between 2000 and 2012, wind energy has increased over 16 times to more than 282,000 MW of operating wind capacity.

Scientists across the globe are continuing to tap into this technology in order to produce higher efficiency levels at lower price points. Take a look at the work some of our scientists are doing in the sector:

• “Integrating Wind And Solar With Hydrogen Producing Fuel Cells“
• “The Cost of Hydrogen Production from Wind Energy“
• “The Application of Valve-Regulated Lead Acid Batteries to Wind Power Generation Systems“
• “Fuel Cells And Hydrogen For Smart Grid“

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“If you want innovation, if you want to have engineers of tomorrow, you have to have science.”

Those were the words of Bill Nye the Science guy at the 2015 Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision K-12 national science competition.

A group of students from West Salem High School in Oregon took first place overall in the competition this year with their prototype of programmable bio-scaffolding that could eliminated uncontrollable bleeding from open wounds in those who take blood thinning medications.

Nye has been involved with this competition for more than a decade. Not only does Nye hope that this competition will help encourage young people to value the importance of the sciences, but that it will also highlight the need for gender inclusion in STEM.

“Half the humans are girls and women, so we want half the engineers and scientists to be girls and women,” said Nye.

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“The Big Bang Theory” is making history by creating the first television-inspired scholarship to help advance students in STEM.

Students pursing science, technology, engineering, and math degrees at UCLA are eligible for the scholarship, which is currently endowed at $4 million.

“We have all been given a gift with ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ a show that’s not only based in the scientific community, but also enthusiastically supported by that same community. This is our opportunity to give back,” said series creator Chuck Lorre.

This from UCLA:

For the 2015–16 academic year, 20 Big Bang Theory scholars will be selected to receive financial assistance. Each year in perpetuity, five additional scholars will be chosen. Scholarships will be awarded based on financial need to low-income students who have earned admission to UCLA based on academic merit but need additional support to bridge the gap between typical levels of financial aid and the cost of attendance.

Read the full article here.

Potential technical applications of printable functional inks.

The video and information in this post relate to an ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology focus issue called: Printable Functional Materials for Electronics and Energy Applications.

(Read/download the focus issue now. It’s entirely free.)

Printing technologies in an atmospheric environment offer the potential for low-cost and materials-efficient alternatives for manufacturing electronics and energy devices such as luminescent displays, thin-film transistors, sensors, thin-film photovoltaics, fuel cells, capacitors, and batteries. Significant progress has been made in the area of printable functional organic and inorganic materials including conductors, semiconductors, and dielectric and luminescent materials.

These new printable functional materials have and will continue to enable exciting advances in printed electronics and energy devices. Some examples are printed amorphous oxide semiconductors, organic conductors and semiconductors, inorganic semiconductor nanomaterials, silicon, chalcogenide semiconductors, ceramics, metals, intercalation compounds, and carbon-based materials.

A special focus issue of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology was created about the publication of state-of-the-art efforts that address a variety of approaches to printable functional materials and device. This focus issue, consisting of a total of 15 papers, includes both invited and contributed papers reflecting recent achievements in printable functional materials and devices.

The topics of these papers span several key ECS technical areas, including batteries, sensors, fuel cells, carbon nanostructures and devices, electronic and photonic devices, and display materials, devices, and processing. The overall collection of this focus issue covers an impressive scope from fundamental science and engineering of printing process, ink chemistry and ink conversion processes, printed devices, and characterizations to the future outlook for printable functional materials and devices.

The video below show demonstrates Inkjet Printed Conductive Tracks for Printed Electronic conducted by S.-P. Chen, H.-L. Chiu, P.-H. Wang, and Y.-C. Liao, Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, No. 1 Sec. 4 Roosevelt Road, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.

Step-by-step explanation of the video:

For printed electronic devices, metal thin film patterns with great conductivities are required. Three major ways to produce inkjet-printed metal tracks will be shown in this video.

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Dr. Alvin Salkind with ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo at ECS headquaters May 19, 2015.

We have some very sad news. Long time ECS member, Dr. Alvin Salkind has died. He joined The Electrochemical Society in 1953 and continued as a member in good standing for more than 62 years.

This message from his family:

Dear ECS Society members,

We are sad to let you know that our father, Dr. Alvin J. Salkind, a fellow of the Electrochemical Society, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 87. Funeral services will be on Friday, June 12 at 10am at the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Ave., Princeton NJ 08542. All are welcome to join us to celebrate his life and career.

James and Susanne

The first thing you need to know is that Dr. Salkind literally wrote the books on electrochemistry and alkaline batteries: Techniques of Electrochemistry Vol 1-3 with Ernest Yeager and Alkaline Storage Batteries with S. Uno Falk.

The ECS Digital Library will give you an idea of how important he was.

To say he was a friend of the Society is an understatement. He lived near the home office and made frequent visits. The picture above is from his latest visit. He was just here May 19th so Roque Calvo, ECS Executive Director, could interview him on video about his life (we’ll have that video soon). He was a pleasure and had lots of great stories.

Below is just a little from notes we gathered from the research we dug up from various sources about Dr. Salkind as we planned for the video interview:

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ECS treasurer E.J. Taylor (Founder & CTO of Faraday Technology), recently forwarded us a story from The Economist featuring ECS members and their contributions to research and development on the ever-improving lithium-ion battery.

Since the battery’s commercialization by Sony in the early 1990s, the lithium-ion battery has improved to produce better laptops, smartphones, and even power electric cars.

Vincent Battaglia, ECS member and head of the Electrochemical Technologies Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, states that the lithium-ion battery “is almost an ideal battery.” With its light weight and recharging capabilities, the battery has received much attention from researchers globally.

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The ECS Conference on Electrochemical Energy Conversion & Storage with SOFC-XIV in Glasgow is right around the corner. With Scotland on our minds, we thought it’d be fitting to look at some of the greatest Scottish scientists, inventors, and engineers. In spite of being a relatively small country, Scotland has produced a group of prolific and esteemed scientists. Take a look at our list and join us in Glasgow, July 26-31.

John Logie Baird (1888-1946)
Engineer, Inventor
Baird was one of the inventors of the mechanical television and was the first person to publicly demonstrate the color television system.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
Engineer, Scientist
One of Scotland’s most eminent scientists, Bell is credited with inventing the first practical telephone. Bell established the Volta Laboratory and Bureau in the late 19th century, which would eventually become known as Bell Labs. (Check out our podcast on Bell Labs!)

Joseph Black (1728-1799)
Chemist, Physician
Black is best known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. Chemistry buildings at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow are named after him.

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Tesla was known for discovering amazing things and then forgetting to write them down.
Image: The Oatmeal

Nikola Tesla is one of the most recognizable scientists in history; unfortunately the majority of his life was dominated by poverty, isolation, and intense emotional relationships with pigeons. Even with all of this, Telsa’s story is both inspiring, and often times even funny. Here are a few things you may not have known about Tesla.

He once made $2/day digging ditches
After graduating from university, Tesla had big dreams of revolutionizing discovery and development in electricity. He began that journey by working at Edison’s electric company in Paris, but traveled to the United States in hopes of working directly with Edison. Of course, upon seeing his potential, Edison offered him a job. However, Edison never paid Tesla the promised amount of $50,000 for the design of an improved direct current generator. With this, Tesla left Edison’s lab and dug ditches to make ends meet until he found enough backers to start his own lab.

Telsa paid an overdue bill with a “death beam”
Most people know that Tesla had quite the eccentric personality, but his later years in life really demonstrated this. Tesla picked pigeons over people and jumped from one hotel to another living a life of isolation. In an attempt to pay his overdue bill at the Governor Clinton hotel, he offered the establishment a wooden case containing a “death beam.” Tesla stated that it held a potentially war-ending weapon, but that the hotel must never open it. They listened… for a while. Once Tesla died the hotel opened the box to unveil nothing but old electrical components.

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The “designer carbon” improved the supercapacitor’s electrical conductivity threefold compared to electrodes made of conventional activated carbon.
Image: Stanford University

Stanford University researchers have developed a new “designer carbon” that can be fine-tuned for a variety of applications, including energy storage and water filters.

The newly developed carbon material has shown that it can significantly improve the power delivery rate of supercapacitors and boost the performance of energy storage technologies.

“We have developed a ‘designer carbon’ that is both versatile and controllable,” said Zhenan Bao, past member of ECS and the senior author of the study. “Our study shows that this material has exceptional energy-storage capacity, enabling unprecedented performance in lithium-sulfur batteries and supercapacitors.”

(PS: Check out some of Bao’s past papers in the Digital Library!)

Not only is the new carbon an improvement over existing versions, it also has a huge potential scope and is inexpensive to produce.

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