Engineers at UC San Diego have developed a nanoparticle-based material for concentrating solar power plants that converts 90% of captured sunlight to heat.
Credit: Renkun Chen, Mechanical Engineering Professor, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

An engineering team from the University of California, San Diego, has developed a new nanoparticle-based material for concentrating solar power. The new research, which has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot program and published in the journal Nano Energy, aims to convert 90 percent of captured light into heat and make solar costs more competitive.

The new material will be able to withstand temperatures greater than 700° Celsius and can survive many years outdoors, despite exposure to humidity.

“We wanted to create a material that absorbs sunlight that doesn’t let any of it escape. We want the black hole of sunlight,” said Sungho Jin, a professor in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

This from the University of California, San Diego:

The novel material features a “multiscale” surface created by using particles of many sizes ranging from 10 nanometers to 10 micrometers. The multiscale structures can trap and absorb light which contributes to the material’s high efficiency when operated at higher temperatures.

Read the full article here.

Head over to our Digital Library and read more research by Sungho Jin, one of the developers of the Silicon boride-coated nanoshell material.

Thermal management represents about 25-30 percent of total costs in a LED bulb, second only to the LEDs themselves.
Credit: Cree

LED maker Cree has introduced a new consumer bulb that costs less, lasts longer, and consumes less energy than the traditional bulb.

The company’s new bulb does not use the heats sinks that LED bulbs typically use. An LED bulb’s metal collar or other heat sink serves to draw away heat from the bulb to ensure a long life. Accordingly, this makes the bulb more expensive and give it a bulky look.

By eliminating the heat sink, Cree lowered the bulb cost from $9.97 for a “soft white” 40-watt to $7.97.

This from IEE Spectrum:

In its new design, heat is removed from the LEDs through convection, or a flow of air through the bulb. The LEDs are mounted on circuit boards, rather than the metal tower. As the diodes heat up, they draw air from outside the bulb through small vent-like openings at the base and on the top. Because hot air rises, air flows continually through the bulb to cool the LEDs. The airflow circulates whether the bulb is vertical, horizontal or upside down, Watson says.

Read the full article here.

The new generation bulb will last 25,000 hours and consume 85 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb.

Want to know what the future has in store for LEDs? Check out what our scientists have been researching to propel this technology. While you’re over there, sign up for our e-Alerts so you are up-to-date on what is happening in the world  of electrochemical and solid state science and technology.

The technology can be applied on top of an existing module or integrated into a new module during assembly, on flat or curved surfaces.
Credit: CSEM

The Swiss company, Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), has announced that they have developed the world’s first white solar modules. According to the company, this will allow for a more visually appealing solar module, which will blend into buildings to become virtually invisible.

The current blue-black solar modules are built to maximize sunlight absorption, whereas a white solar module was previously not a color option due to the fact that the color would generally reflect light, rather than absorbing it.

This from CSEM:

CSEM has developed a new technology to make white solar modules, with no visible cells and connections, a reality. It combines a solar cell technology able to convert infrared solar light into electricity and a selective scattering filter, which scatters the whole visible spectrum while transmitting infrared light. Any solar technology based on crystalline silicon can now be used to manufacture white – and colored – modules.

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Find openings in your area via the ECS job board.

ECS’s job board keeps you up-to-date with the latest career opportunities in electrochemical and solid-state science. Check out the latest openings that have been added to the board:

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Battery Manufacturing
Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Under general supervision, the postdoctoral research associate will be conducting research specifically in battery manufacturing R&D to lower cost, raise energy density, increase production yield, and address manufacturing bottlenecks. This incumbent will work in close collaboration with other researchers involved with ORNL’s applied energy storage program. This position resides in the Department of Energy (DOE) Battery Manufacturing Facility and the Manufacturing Systems Research Group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

Director at the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy Production (HI ERN)
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH – Jülich, Germany
We are seeking an internationally respected researcher in the field of electrocatalysis, who is capable of further developing in particular the material and process engineering principles of electrolytic water splitting at the highest scientific level. It is envisaged that research activities will be complementary to and interlinked with work at Jülich‘s Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK) with its sub-institutes involved in electrochemical, process engineering, and materials science research, and with research work at the Erlangen cluster of excellence Engineering of Advanced Materials.

Innovative device detects prostate cancer and kidney disease on the spot.
Credit: Brigham Young University

Scientists from Brigham Young University have developed a remarkably simple device that has the potential to save lives.

The innovative device, created by chemist Adam Woolley and his students, can detect prostate cancer and kidney disease on the spot, all by simply dropping a urine sample into a tiny tube and seeing how far it goes.

This from Brigham Young University:

The tube is lined with DNA sequences that will latch onto disease markers and nothing else. Urine from someone with a clean bill of health would flow freely through the tube (the farther, the better). But even at ultra-low concentrations, the DNA grabs enough markers to slow the flow and signal the presence of disease.

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Norwegian entrepreneur, Jostein Eikeland, is finally unveiling the development his has been working on in secret for the past decade in hopes to jolt the world of energy storage.

Eikeland and his company Alevo plan to reveal a battery that will last longer and cost far less than the current rival technologies. To do this, they have developed a technology that is to store excess electricity generated by power plants.

This from Reuters:

The company has created what it calls GridBanks, which are shipping containers full of thousands of battery cells. Each container can deliver 2 megawatts of power, enough to power up to 1,300 homes for an hour. The batteries use lithium iron phosphate and graphite as active materials and an inorganic electrolyte – what Eikeland called the company’s “secret sauce” – that extends longevity and reduces the risk of burning. They can be charged and discharged over 40,000 times, the company said.

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JES is one of the leading journals in the field of electrochemical science and technology, and is currently the second most-cited journal in this field.

We are pleased to announce that the impact factor (IF) for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) has increased by 10% over last year – it is now 2.859 – increasing its ranking for a third year in a row, making it one of the top 10 journals in the electrochemistry category.

JES has gone from #13 (2011 IF) to #11 (2012 IF) to #9 (2013 IF).

Equally important, JES continues to sit among the most-cited journals in electrochemistry, this year coming in as the third most-cited out of all electrochemistry journals.

The Society competes strongly with big publishers
We are especially proud that JES is competing so strongly with journals from much bigger publishers. As a nonprofit society publisher we are very pleased that our mission-based approach is able to continue to produce quality publications that are among the best in our field. Thank you for your support in this; it is our members, authors, reviewers, and editors that make this possible.

All ECS journals have impact factors in 2014
Our newer journals have also been given an impact factor this year, although they cannot be considered “full” impact factors as there is only year of data included in the IF calculation. ECS Electrochemistry Letters (EEL) is already performing strongly with a partial impact factor of 1.54; ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology (JSS) has an IF of 0.917, and ECS Solid State Letters (SSL) of 0.781. We look forward to seeing how they are performing when the full impact factors are published next year.

(Even the impact factor our archive journal, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters (ESL), has increased, indicative of the long-term value of publishing with ECS.)

Take advantage of our OA offering to increase visibility
As part of our mission to disseminate our important research as widely as possible, ECS is keen to expand the number of articles published as Open Access. All our authors are offered the choice of publishing their article as OA at the point of submitting their manuscript.

Authors–who have attended one of our meetings, or are ECS members, or who come from subscribing institutions–can publish OA for free by using an article credit.

Find out more about ECS and OA or get in touch with us at oa@electrochem.org.

Thank you for your continued support!

BTW: We look forward to seeing you at our next bi-annual meeting in Chicago or the energy conversion and storage conference in Scotland!

The ECS Conference on Electrochemical Energy Conversion & Storage with SOFC–XIV

The ECS Conference on Electrochemical Energy Conversion & Storage with SOFC–XIV is an international conference convening in Glasgow, Scotland, July 26-31, 2015. It is devoted to all aspects of research, development, and engineering of solid oxide fuel cells, batteries, and low-temperature fuel cells, electrolyzers, and redox flow cells.

This international conference will bring together scientists and engineers to discuss both fundamental advances and engineering innovations.

See the Call for Papers for detailed information about the symposia, manuscript submission requirements, and financial assistance.

Submit your abstract here.

Be a sponsor or exhibitor.

Cancun was my second meeting. What I’ve noticed so far is how giving everyone is. Total strangers, some very important ones, have been more than willing to share their science or help me understand the inner-workings of the Society. The meetings feel like safe places where I can ask stupid questions and be vulnerable. Which, they say, is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. (After you’ve read the highlights, go watch Brene Brown’s TED Talk  on The Power of Vulnerability. She has the research!)

Over 2,000 people attended the 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meeting in Cancun, Mexico. This was ECS’s first return visit to Cancun since 2006. Participants could choose among 51 symposia and 2,299 presentations.

(Look for photos on Facebook.)

Electrochemical Energy and Water Summit

Brainstorming breakout session at the Electrochemical Water and Energy Summit

In its first “Science for Solving Society’s Problems Challenge,” ECS partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to leverage the brainpower of the many scientists in electrochemistry and solid state science and technology that regularly attend ECS meetings. The four grantees were identified during a multi-day workshop. Over 100 researchers were guided through a brainstorming and working group session with the theme of improving access to clean water and sanitation in developing countries. The winners:

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Open access allows free, immediate, online access to peer-reviewed research with full rights to reuse the work.

This week has been declared International Open Access Week. Here at ECS, we’re boldly moving toward open access (OA) publication to make scientific research results and the latest findings more widely accessible, and thereby speeding up the discovery process.

Still, open access can be confusing and controversial at times – specifically for publishers. In order to explain many of the issues and concerns revolving around open access, a few OA advocates have banded together and took to Reddit’s popular “Ask me Anything” series.

Head over there now to see what they had to say about all things open access.