Jawann McBeth, Development and Membership Intern

People may have their own assumptions of what an intern in today’s society should be doing. What kind of work should they be required to do? How many hours? Should they be getting paid? Decaf or two sugars with your coffee?

My name is Jawann McBeth, Communication & Media Arts major and rising senior at Montclair State University. I’ve lived in Mercer County, New Jersey my entire life and all those years I never knew The Electrochemical Society was just a few miles up the road. Being the newest member of ECS as a Development and Membership Intern, the last few weeks have been a transformative experience like none I have had in the past. I mean that both literally and figuratively.

I am actually transforming membership information from hard copy, sometimes ancient documents that date back to 1902, into a digital database that will allow files to be maintained permanently without the fear of missing or damaged documents. This project encompasses the scanning and organization of all of their membership information, such as application forms, resumes, change of address notifications and any other miscellaneous paperwork relevant to each member.

As I work on one of the biggest projects of my internship, I wonder to myself how could such a substantial organization with members such as Thomas Edison and H. H. Dow have been so far under my radar? Yet, what is most surprising about the organization is not how little people may know about the Society, but how much the work of the members is an integral part of most people’s daily lives.

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The Edward Goodrich Acheson Award, one of the oldest and most prestigious ECS honors, was established in 1928 for distinguished contributions to the advancement of any of the objects, purposes or activities of The Electrochemical Society. Read the nomination rules.

The recipient shall be an ECS member who is distinguished for contributions consisting of: (a) discovery pertaining to electrochemical and/or solid state science and technology, (b) invention of a plan, process or device or research evidenced by a paper embodying information useful, valuable, or significant in the theory or practice of electrochemical and/or solid state science and technology.

Did you know that since 1929, ECS has presented the Acheson Award 43 times? Of that number, 33 award winners have also served the organization as President. The most recent recipient of this award was Ralph Brodd in 2014, the 79th ECS President who was esteemed for over 40 years of experience in the battery industry.

Edward Goodrich Acheson (1856 – 1931) was an American chemist and the 6th President of The Electrochemical Society who invented the Acheson process, which is still used to make silicon carbide (carborundum) and later a manufacturer of carborundum and graphite. Acheson worked with Thomas Edison and experimented on making a conducting carbon to be used in the electric light bulb.

Regarded by many as the “father of modern electrochemistry,” Bard is best known for his work developing the scanning electrochemical microscope†, co-discovering electrochemiluminescence**, contributing to photoelectrochemistry* of semiconductor electrodes, and co-authoring a seminal textbook in the field of electrochemistry. He served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society from 1982-2001.

Bard is considered one of today’s 50 most influential scientists in the world. He joined the Society in 1965 and became an ECS Honorary member in 2013. ECS established the Allen J. Bard Award in 2013 to recognize distinguished contributions to electrochemistry.

Listen to the podcast and download this episode and others for free through the iTunes Store, SoundCloud, or our RSS Feed. You can also find us on Stitcher.

PS: We’re in the process of creating a JES Focus Issue honoring Allen J. Bard. We invite contributions in the spirit of Dr. Bard’s multifaceted works in electroanalytical chemistry. Find out more!

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The development of ultralight, ultrathin solar cells is on the horizon due to a new semiconductor call phosphorene.

A team of researchers from Australian National University have developed an atom-thick layer of black phosphorus crystals through a process that utilizes sticky tape.

“Because phosphorene is so thin and light, it creates possibilities for making lots of interesting devices, such as LEDs or solar cells,” said lead researcher Dr. Yuerui (Larry) Lu.

The fabrication of this phosphorene is similar to that of graphene, bringing the new material to a thickness of just 0.5 nanometers. With phosphorene’s novel properties, doors are opening for a new generation of solar cells and LEDs.

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A group from Texas A&M University, led by Dr. Choongho Yu, have developed a carbon nanotube sponge that could lower the cost in the effort to commercialize electrochemical cells.

The researchers’ aim was to develop a material to replace the expensive Pt-based catalyst currently used in many electrochemical systems. While other researchers have previously attempted the same feat, the results typically showed low stability levels.

This from Texas A&M University:

[The team has] developed a new low-cost and scalable method to synthesize 3-D sponge-like carbon nanotubes, which are self-standing and highly porous. After post-treatment, striking catalytic activity and stability are found to be comparable to or better than those of Pt-based catalysts in both acidic and basic environments.

Read the full article here.

The researchers believe that these results could allow the commercialization of current lab-based electrochemical cells due and potentially lower the price of commercial fuel cell stacks.

We recently sat down with esteemed battery engineer Esther Takeuchi, the key contributor to the battery system that is still used to power the majority of life-saving implantable cardiac defibrillators.

Takeuchi’s career has made an immense impact on science and has been recognized globally. She currently holds more than 150 U.S. patents, more than any American woman, which earned her a spot in the Inventors Hall of Fame.

Her innovative work in battery research also landed her the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2008, where the president complimented her on her work that is “responsible for saving millions of lives.”

Listen to the podcast and download this episode and others for free through the iTunes Store, SoundCloud, or our RSS Feed. You can also find us on Stitcher.

PS: Check out the video version of this podcast and interviews with other world-leaders in electrochemical and solid state science as part of our Masters Series.

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Lithium-air batteries are—in theory—an extremely attractive alternative for affordable, efficient energy storage for electric vehicles. However, as researchers explore this technology, they are met with many critical challenges. If researchers can overcome these challenges, there is a great likelihood that the lithium-air battery will surpass the energy density of today’s lithium-ion battery.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California, Berkley feel like they may have part of the answer to this critical challenge, which could propel the practicality of the lithium-air battery. The team, which included researchers from Bryan McCloskey and Venkat Viswanathan‘s laboratories, has found a way to both increase the capacity while preserving the recharge ability of the lithium-air battery by blending different types within the battery’s electrolytes.

“The electrolytes used in batteries are just like Gatorade electrolytes,” says Venkat Viswanathan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon. “Every electrolyte has a solvent and a salt. So if you take Gatorade, the solvent would be water and the salt would be something like sodium chloride, for instance. However, in a lithium air battery, the solvent is dimethoxyethane and the salt is something like lithium hexafluorophosphate.”

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There is currently a strong incentive among the scientific community to research clean, renewable energy sources to address challenges in sustainable global development. Through solar fuels, scientists can convert solar energy to chemical energy stored in chemical fuels such as clean-burning hydrogen.

Solar fuels started to really accelerate in 1972 when Akira Fujishima and Kenichi Honda developed a titanium dioxide-based photoelectrochemical cell to split water to generate hydrogen.

Now, researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology have discovered a new way to improve upon this process through the novel way of processing the material gallium phosphide (GaP).

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A new issue of ECS Transactions has just been published. Get Volume 68, Issues 1 of ECST Glasgow here. The ECS Conference on Electrochemical Energy Conversion & Storage with SOFC-XIV will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, on July 26-31, 2015.

Additional issues of ECST from this conference will be published in the coming weeks.

Learn more about our conference in Glasgow and find out more about ECST.

Research and improvements in LED technology have impacted everything from television screens to life-changing electronic vision. With the vast potential of LED technology, scientists are looking to improve the efficiency of LEDs as well as simplify the manufacturing process.

A team at the California Nanosystems Institute at UCLA is focusing on the science of electroluminescence to accomplish this by demonstrating this process from multilayer molybdenum disulfide.

In the new study, UCLA’s Xianfeng Duan was able to show that the multilayer molybdenum disulfide—the relatively cheap and easy to produce material—can, contrary to popular belief, show strong luminescence qualities when electrical current passes through.

Prior to focusing his attention on building better LEDs, Duan focused his research efforts on topics such as graphene’s applications in transistors and applying nanoscale materials to solar energy efforts.

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