An article by C. Liu and R.G. Kelly in the latest issue of Interface.

Localized corrosion is characterized by intense dissolution at discrete sites on the surface of a metal or alloy, while the remainder of the surface corrodes at a much lower rate. The ratio of the two rates is on the order of 10. Typical forms of localized corrosion include crevice corrosion, pitting, stress corrosion cracking, and intergranular corrosion. Localized corrosion represents the primary corrosion failure mode for passive/corrosion resistant materials.

There has been extensive experimental characterization of the dependence of the susceptibility to corrosion on alloy and solution composition, temperature, and other variables. Computational modeling can play an important role in improving the understanding of localized corrosion processes, in particular when it is coupled with experimental research that accurately quantifies the important characteristics that control corrosion rate and resultant morphology. There are many modeling methods that can be applied, with the choice of method driven by the goal of the modeling exercise.

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The India-based Achira Labs has taken silk screening to a whole new level.

Chemical engineers from Achira Labs have found a way to weave diabetes test strips from silk, rather than the conventional plastic or paper.

But they’re not creating these strips for luxury. Silk would actually have several advantages in a country such as India, where weavers are abundant and silk is inexpensive.

Achira Labs have used these silk sensors before to detect other medical issues, including strips that change color when they detect a deadly type of diarrhea in diapers.

These new silk strips for diabetics are not only just as efficient as other types of glucose strips, they are also easier to manufacture.

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An article by Kenji Amaya, Naoki Yoneya, and Yuki Onishi published in the latest issue of Interface.

Protecting structures from corrosion is one of the most important challenges in engineering. Cathodic protection using sacrificial anodes or impressing current from electrodes is applied to many marine structures. Prediction of the corrosion rates of structures and the design of cathodic protection systems have been traditionally based on past experience with a limited number of empirical formulae.

Recently, application of numerical methods such as the boundary element method (BEM) or finite element method (FEM) to corrosion problems has been studied intensively, and these methods have become powerful tools in the study of corrosion problems.

With the progress in numerical simulations, “Inverse Problems” have received a great deal of attention. The “Inverse Problem” is a research methodology pertaining to identifying unknown information from external or indirect observation utilizing a model of the system.

Read the rest.

Cochlear implants have been the go-to tool for those with significant hearing loss. However, in order to implant a cochlear device, one must be willing to go under the knife and dish out a substantial amount of money.

That’s why researchers from Colorado State University started looking for a more practical solution, which caused them to turn to an unlikely organ: the tongue.

Colorado State University researchers John William, Leslie Stone-Roy, and JJ Moritz have developed a Bluetooth-enabled microphone earpiece in conjunction with a smart retainer that fits on a person’s tongue to strengthen the hearing of partially deaf people.

Of course, you can’t organically hear though your tongue. Instead, the device works to reprogram areas of the brain in order to help partially deaf people interpret various sensations on the tongue as certain words. The tongue is the perfect organ for this application due to its hypersensitive ability to discern between tactile sensations.

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The Arizona Section of ECS will be hosting a meeting with special guest speaker Professor Robert F. Savinell.

Date: January 26, 2014

Time: Networking and refreshments at 6:15 PM; Seminar begins at 7:00 PM

Place: University of Arizona
Tuscon, AZ 85721
Agave Room, 4th Floor of Student Union Building

Cost: Free to attend; $5 for light refreshments

Speaker: Professor Robert F. Savinell
George S. Dively Professor of Electrochemical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University
Professor Savinell is recognized as a leading authority on electrochemical energy storage and conversion. His research has been directed at fundamental science and engineering research for electrochemical systems and novel device design, development, and optimization. Dr. Savinell has over 100 publications and seven patents in the electrochemical field. He is a past chair of ECS’s Electrolytic and Electrochemical Engineering Division, a former editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, and a Fellow of ECS.

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The flexible material created at Rice University has the potential for use in electronics or for energy storage.
Image: Tour Group/Rice University

James Tour and his group at Rice University have developed and tested a flexible, three-dimensional supercapacitor with the potential to be scaled up for commercial applications.

In this study, the researchers advanced what they had already developed in laser-induced graphene (LIG) by producing and testing the stacked, three-dimensional supercapacitors.

Their prior findings showed that firing a laser at an inexpensive polymer burned off other elements and left a film of porous graphene, which has the potential to be the perfect electrode for supercapacitors or electronic circuits.

The researchers began by making vertically aligned supercapacitors with laser-induced graphene on both sides of a polymer sheet.

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The aluminum-air battery has the potential to serve as a short-term power source for electric vehicles.
Image: Journal of The Electrochemical Society

A new long-life aluminum-air battery is set to resolve challenges in rechargeable energy storage technology, thanks to ECS member Ryohei Mori.

Mori’s development has yielded a new type of aluminum-air battery, which is rechargeable by refilling with either salt or fresh water.

The research is detailed in an open access article in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, where Mori explains how he modified the structure of the previous aluminum-air battery to ensure a longer battery life.

Theoretically, metal-air technology can have very high energy densities, which makes it a promising candidate for next-generation batteries that could enable such things as long-range battery-electric vehicles.

However, the long-standing barrier of anode corrosion and byproduct accumulation have halted these batteries from achieving their full potential. Dr. Mori’s recently published paper, “Addition of Ceramic Barriers to Aluminum-Air batteries to Suppress By-product Formation on Electrodes,” details how to combat this issue.

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Scientists out of the University of Waterloo are one step closer to inventing a cheaper, lighter and more powerful rechargeable battery for electric vehicles. At the heart of this discovery lies a breakthrough in lithium-sulfur batteries due to an ultra-thin nanomaterial.

This from the University of Waterloo:

Their discovery of a material that maintains a rechargeable sulfur cathode helps to overcome a primary hurdle to building a lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery. Such a battery can theoretically power an electric car three times further than current lithium-ion batteries for the same weight – at much lower cost.

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An article by N.J. Laycock, D.P. Krouse, S.C. Hendy, and D.E. Williams published in the latest issue of Interface.

Stainless steels and other corrosion resistant alloys are generally protected from the environment by ultra-thin layers of surface oxides, also called passive films. Unfortunately, these films are not perfect and their Achilles’ heel is a propensity to catastrophic local breakdown, which leads to rapid corrosion of the metallic substructure. Aside from the safety and environmental hazards associated with these events, the economic impact is enormous.

In the oil and gas and petrochemical industries, it is of course usually possible to select from experience a corrosion-resistant alloy that will perform acceptably in a given service environment. This knowledge is to a large extent captured in industry or company-specific standards, such as Norsok M1.

However, these selections are typically very conservative because the limits tend to be driven by particular incidents or test results, rather than by fundamental understanding. Decision-making can be very challenging, especially in today’s mega-facilities, where the cost of production downtime is often staggeringly large. Thus significant practical benefits could be gained from reliable quantitative models for pitting corrosion of stainless steels. There have been several attempts to develop purely stochastic models of pitting corrosion.

Read the rest.

Thanks for participating in our survey about what you want the new electrochem.org (link to the current site – new site coming in the 4th quarter) to look like. We had over 500 people respond with some great suggestions. Thanks so much! Here’s a little peek inside.

(BTW: We picked a winner for the gift card too, waiting for confirmation and I’ll share the name. Check your email!)

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