With the 2016 Olympics looming in the distance, Rio de Janeiro city officials are aiming to tackle a major issue before the games begin – and that issue would be sanitation.

According to the Associated Press, Rio de Janeiro officials unveiled a new sanitation project, which hopes to eliminate the raw sewage that is tainting the waters of Rio’s Gloria Marian.

This from the Associated Press:

More than half of the sewage in this city of 12 million goes untreated, meaning that collected rainwater is often contaminated with raw sewage. More than 10,000 liters of raw sewage flows each second into most of Rio’s waterways, from the massive Guanabara Bay, where the Gloria Marina is located, to its beaches and lagoons.

Read the full article here.

In order to address this problem, the government is to build a pipeline to stem the flow of raw sewage into the marina. The project will connect area rainwater collectors with sewage treatment centers in order to eliminate the issue of raw sewage in the marina.

The project is expected to run around $6.2 million.

Though the issue of adequate sanitation goes far beyond Rio de Janeiro’s Gloria Marian. Forty percent of the world’s population – 2.5 billion people – practice open defecation or lack adequate sanitation facilities, and the consequences can be devastation for human health as well as the environment. To help combat this global issue, ECS is partnering with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in an exciting and innovative way to fund water and sanitation research.

Do you want to help solve some of the most challenging issues in the world today? Would you like to receive research funding to support your most innovative and creative problem solving ideas? Then please join us to lend your voice and expertise in helping to solve some of the world’s most challenging water and sanitation problems!

Modern electrochemistry can be traced back over 200 years to the 18th century and the work of Alessandro Volta and his experiments with the electric pile.

The following is an article from the latest issue of Interface by ECS Executive Director, Roque J. Calvo.

The 17th International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB)* was held this past June in the beautiful and historic setting at Villa Erba along the shores of Lake Como, Italy. This international meeting has become an exceptional gathering where the world’s top battery research scientists present their work on electrochemical conversion and storage. The application of their research now powers our essential wireless devices so that they run longer, cleaner, and more efficiently. But the splendor of the location was not the only reason that IMLB was so exceptional this year; the meeting venue reconnected attendees to their roots. Lake Como is the birthplace of Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the first battery, which he called the electric pile, and the place where the science of electrochemistry began.

Modern electrochemistry can be traced back over 200 years to the 18th century and the work of Alessandro Volta and his experiments with the electric pile. While Volta hailed from Lake Como and was a trained physicist, many consider him to be the first great electrochemist. As a result of his vast scientific influence, the ECS Europe Section named an award after him and every two years they recognize a scientist with the prestigious Volta Medal (see photo). The medal depicts his electric pile, the first notable electrochemical storage device.

Read the rest.

Thanks in large part to scientific breakthroughs in sensors, cars have been getting smarter – and soon they’ll be able to tell if you’re distracted behind the wheel.

General Motors and Australian company Seeing Machines have landed a 15 year deal to create sensors that will detect when drivers are distracted.

Read the full article here.

This from the company news release:

The Seeing Machines’ Operator Monitoring System is based on patented eye-tracking technology that uses sensing equipment that requires no re-calibration between different drivers and tracks head alignment for potential distraction of the driver.

The sensors are another addition to the technology that could assist in the creation of the fully driverless car. With the United Services Auto Association noting that auto-breaks, collision assurance, and adaptive cruise control potentially coming to a car dealership near you, it is apparent that our cars are getting smarter.

Though we may be several decades away from these fully driverless cars, the sensor technology in automobiles is assisting in driver safety through anti-distraction technology.

“Eye and head tracking technology is the next step in automotive safety, which we expect to play a significant role in the reduction of one of the greatest causes of accidents: driver distraction,” said Ken Kroeger, CEO of Seeing Machines. “We strongly believe that the addition of driver monitoring to ADAS will deliver a significant improvement to the safety of drivers, passengers and pedestrians.”

Learn more sensor science and technology and their global impact via ECS’s Digital Library.

The researchers at Virginia Tech have successfully demonstrated the concept of a sugar biobattery that can completely convert the chemical energy in sugar substrates into electricity.
Credit: Virginia Tech University

According to new studies, the future of energy storage and conversion may be something that’s sitting in your kitchen cupboard.

A new breakthrough out of Virginia Tech demonstrates that a sugar-powered biobattery has the potential to outperform the current lithium-ion batteries on many fronts.

Not only is the energy density of the sugar-powered battery significantly higher than that of the lithium-ion battery, but the sugar battery is also less costly than the li-ion, refillable, environmentally friendly, and nonflammable.

This from LiveScience:

This nature-inspired biobattery is a type of enzymatic fuel cell (EFC) — an electrobiochemical device that converts chemical energy from fuels such as starch and glycogen into electricity. While EFCs operate under the same general principles as traditional fuel cells, they use enzymes instead of noble-metal catalysts to oxidize their fuel. Enzymes allow for the use of more-complex fuels (such as glucose), and these more-complex fuels are what give EFCs their superior energy density.

Read the full article here.

The scientists hope to increase the power density, extend the lifetime, and reduce the cost of electrode materials in order for this energy-dense sugar biobattery to become the technology of the future.

Find the full findings in this issue of Nature Communications.

Learn more about this topic by reading a recently published open access article via ECS’s Digital Library.

Technology like this pillbox sensor from Lively can help caretakers monitor people with Alzheimer’s and dementia from afar.

Sensors may be the answer to easy and accessible in-home senior care – at least that’s what the elder care tech industry is trying to achieve.

It’s no secret that the American population is greying, and with the continuing aging of the “baby boom” generation, the issue of independence at home has become a high priority. Now, seniors have to opportunity to stay in their own homes safely thanks to sensors.

This from CNN:

SmartThings is a DIY home automation system that connects sensors and smart devices with a wireless hub. In addition to sensors like those in Mary Lou’s home, the system can loop in smart thermostats, smart plugs, door locks and surveillance cameras.

(more…)

Microgrids are small power systems that are able to function independently when storms or other emergencies knock out electricity.
Credit: Center for Sustainable Energy

New York state will be holding a $40 million energy technology competition this fall in order to aid research that will allow local communities to retain power during outages.

This from Associated Press:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the New York Prize competition, which would award funding to companies or utilities that suggest the best ways to create so-called “microgrids.” Microgrids are small power systems that are able to function independently when storms or other emergencies knock out electricity.

The microgrids will allow for hospitals, schools, water plants, and even homes to hold energy when the main electrical grid is not working.

Cuomo is to launch the competition this fall.

If you find this concept interesting and would like to partake in solving some of the most challenging issues in the world today, check out the details on ECS’s 2014 Electrochemical Energy and Water Summit.

Damon opts to use toilet water in lieu of fresh H2O for his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Like many other celebrities, Matt Damon has decided to do his part and participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Though, the award-winning actor and humanitarian was a bit conflicted about wasting a bucket of clean water.

His solution? Use toilet water, of course.

“It posed kind of a problem for me, not only because there’s a drought here in California,” Damon explained in his video, “but because I co-founded Water.org, and we envision the day when everybody has access to clean drinking water – and there are about 800 million people in the world who don’t – and so dumping a clean bucket of water on my head seemed a little crazy.”

According to Water.org, there are about 2.4 billion people globally who still lack access to clean sanitation systems. Through his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Damon saw a way to not only contribute to a good cause – but also educate about the very important global issue of sanitation.

“For those of you like my wife who think this is really disgusting, keep in mind that the water in our toilets in the West is actually cleaner than the water that most people in the developing world have access too.”

ECS is also focusing on the global issue of sanitation by partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at the 4th International Electrochemical Energy Summit. By distributing over $200,000 in funding, ECS hopes to empower researchers and bolster innovate research. Join us in Cancun, October 5-9, to take part in this multi-day workshop.

Join the ECS LinkedIn group.

This from our LinkedIn group:

Recently some researchers move to Mg batteries. Pellion Tech in its white paper claims double energy density both in volumetric and gravimetric for Mg batteries.

I am confused since it seems that the discharge voltage should be at least 3V and no cell have been reported working experimentally at such potential yet (Maybe I did not find).

Moreover, the safety issues will not come for Mg batteries with magnesium anodes? and for Mg-ion batteries, the energy density would be competitive with current Li-ion batteries?

Does the main opportunity for Mg batteries lie in their cathodes same as Lithium batteries?

Leave comments here.

Request to join the LinkedIn group today!

Greg, a 6 year ECS member, thinks the older you get the more important membership becomes.

Our last video, shot in May 2014 was about coming to the ECS meetings. This new one, also shot in Florida, is about becoming a member.

Turns out there are a lot of reasons to become a member. But the best part for me was sharing the finished product with the folks here in the home office. They walked away with a smile, saying it was nice to hear all those good things about ECS.

You can have your head down working so hard, so focused on the day-to-day, that it’s easy to forget the big picture and what all those little things we do here add up to.

Thanks to all the members!

Find out more about individual, institutional, and student memberships.

The 227th ECS Meeting is in Chicago, IL from May 24 – 28, 2015

The call for abstracts for the 227th ECS Meeting to be held May 24-28, 2015 in Chicago, IL is now open.

Meeting abstracts should explicitly state objectives, new results, and conclusions or significance of the work.

Regardless of whether you submit as a poster or an
oral presentation, it is at the symposium organizers’ discretion whether it is scheduled for an oral or poster presentation.

Programming for this meeting will occur in January 2015.

Abstracts are due no later than November 14, 2014.

Find out more.