By: Delaney Hellman, ECS Development Associate

Sci-Hub launched a few years back when Alexandra Elbakyan of Kazakhstan was struggling to find affordable and relevant research through her institution. Fast forward to 2017 and Sci-Hub serves as one of the most common sites that seeks to circumvent paywalls and provide access to scholarly literature.

While 25 percent of scholarly documents on the web are now open access, thanks to the growing movement, Sci-Hub offers access to around 62 million academic articles. Its unconvincing legality has caught the attention of major proponents of publishing, including Elsevier.

Despite the whirl-wind of controversy surrounding the site’s launch, Sci-Hub data was able to answer some important questions: who needs access to research, what do they need access to, and how much do they lack access to?

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Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (2nd Edition), by Mark E. Orazem and Bernard Tribollet, provides the fundamentals needed to apply impedance spectroscopy to a broad range of applications with emphasis on obtaining physically meaningful insights from measurements. The second edition provides expanded treatment of the influence of mass transport, time-constant dispersion, kinetics, and constant-phase elements.

The new edition improves on the clarity of some of the chapters, more than doubling the number of examples. It has more in-depth treatment of background material needed to understand impedance spectroscopy, including electrochemistry, complex variables, and differential equations. This title includes expanded treatment of the influence of mass transport and kinetics, and reflects recent advances in the understanding of frequency dispersion and interpretation of constant-phase elements.

This monograph is sponsored by ECS, and published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

About the Authors

Mark E. Orazem is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. He organized the 6th International Symposium on Electrochemical Impedence Spectroscopy and teaches a short course on impedance spectroscopy for The Electrochemical Society.

Bernard Tribollet is the Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Associate Director of the Laboratoire Interfaces et Systémes Electrochemique at Pierre and Marie Curie University. Dr. Tribollet instructs an annual short course on impedance spectroscopy.

Visit the ECS Online Store to purchase your copy today!

Ten new issues of ECS Transactions (ECST) have just been published for the upcoming 231st ECS Meeting. The papers in these issues of ECST will be presented in New Orleans, Louisiana, May 28 – June 1, 2017.

ECST Volume 77, Issues 1 to 10 can now be accessed online through the ECS Digital Library.

These issues are also available for purchase from the ECS Online Store:

1. 1. Battery Electrolytes
2. 2. Emerging Materials for Post CMOS Devices/Sensing and Applications 8
3. 3. Plasma Nano Science and Technology
4. 4. Processes at the Semiconductor Solution Interface 7
5. 5. Silicon Compatible Materials, Processes, and Technologies for Advanced Integrated Circuits and Emerging Applications 7
6. 6. Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Materials and Devices 18
7. 7. Solid-State Electronics and Photonics in Biology and Medicine 4
8. 8. Properties and Applications of 2-Dimensional Layered Materials 2
9. 9. Oxygen or Hydrogen Evolution Catalysis for Water Electrolysis 3
10. 10. Solid-Gas Electrochemical Interfaces 2 – SGEI 2

All issues are currently in stock as CD/USB combos, but will also be made available for purchase as instant PDF downloads beginning May 27, 2017.

While at the ECS meeting in New Orleans, limited CD/USB copies will be purchasable at registration – please be sure to stop by to browse available issues and to check out our new exhibit booth!

There are only 10 days left to submit your abstract to the 2017 Fuel Cell Seminar & Energy Exposition!

Since 1976, the Fuel Cell Seminar has been a staple for fuel cell industry professionals, researchers, and stakeholders to meet with colleagues and customers alike and see the latest developments of this exciting industry.

Attracting an international audience, the Fuel Cell Seminar features the latest fuel cell and hydrogen products, technical and market research, policy updates, and commercialization strategies for all applications and market sectors.  The Fuel Cell Seminar is the foremost event for networking with industry representatives, current and potential customers, stakeholders and decision makers interested in the clean, reliable, resilient power potential of fuel cells.

Abstract submissions are due by May 27, 2017. Please see the FCS 2017 Call for Abstracts for topic list and submission guidelines. ECS will also be publishing an issue of ECS Transactions (ECST) containing full conference papers from the 2017 Fuel Cell Seminar for interested presenters.

The Fuel Cell Seminar & Energy Exposition will be held November 7-9, 2017, at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California.

For further details about the seminar, please visit www.fuelcellseminar.com.

A new issue of ECS Transactions (ECST) has just been published. This issue includes 19 papers which will be presented at the Sixth International Conference on Semiconductor Technology for Ultra Large Integrated Circuits and Thin Film Transistors (ULSIC vs. TFT 6), in Schloss Hernstein, Hernstein, Austria, May 21-25, 2017.

ECST Volume 79, Issue 1 can be found here.

Issues of ECST can also be purchased in the ECS ONLINE STORE as full-text digital downloads.

My name is Eric Pacansky and I am a graduating senior from the College of New Jersey (TCNJ). While at TCNJ, I have been studying business administration and have learned many concepts regarding how to run a business. To compliment my studies, I have had the good fortune of participating in two internships. I am grateful for the many opportunities and challenges these internships have presented, especially those I received as a membership services intern at ECS.

When I first arrived at ECS in December 2016, I was not exactly sure what electrochemistry was or why it was so important. Then, after being presented with some of the topics that fall under the umbrella of electrochemistry, I was worried that I wouldn’t last long at ECS since I wasn’t able to comprehend most of what electrochemistry is all about. Thankfully, I was assured that having a solid foundation in electrochemistry was not one of my job requirements in the membership department.

I was then informed about ECS’s Free the Science movement. Free the Science is ECS’s plan to provide platinum open access of its journals. This means authors will not have to pay publishing fees, and readers will not have to pay subscription fees. As someone who is studying business, this idea sounded crazy to me. It sounded like a utopian ideal that couldn’t possibly work. Why would the organization exist if it wasn’t trying to take every last dollar it possibly could? That’s when I was reminded of ECS’s mission to advance the science. For the most part, publishers have historically created paywalls that affect a person’s ability to either publish or gain access to an article. These paywalls have held back advancements in science. Removing these barriers is the future of scientific publishing and ECS’s work to do this shows the organization’s commitment to its core values and supporting scientists.

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By: Alice H. Suroviec, Berry College

Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha is a computational search engine that uses an extensive collection of built-in data and algorithms to answer computation questions using a web-browser interface. It is a free website designed by the programmers behind the Mathematica software package.
www.wolframalpha.com

NREL MatDB

NRELMatDB is a computational materials database that primarily contains information on materials for renewable energy applications such as photovoltaic materials, and materials for photo-electrochemical water splitting. This website is a growing collection of computed properties of stoichiometric and fully ordered materials. It is a very useful database for those needing comparative data.
NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
www.materials.nrel.gov

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By: Petr Vanýsek

The discovery of an electric arc can be tied to the use of an electrochemical energy source. Sir Humphry Davy described in 1800 an electric discharge using electrochemical cells¹ that produced what we would call a spark, rather than an arc. However, in 1808, using an electrochemical battery containing 2000 plates of copper and zinc, he demonstrated an electric arc 8cm long. Davy is also credited with naming the phenomenon an arc (Fig. 1). An electric arc was also discovered independently in 1802 by Russian physicist Vasily Petrov, who also proposed various possible applications including arc welding. There was a long gap between the discovery of the electric arc and putting it to use.

Electrochemical cells were not a practical source to supply a sustained high current for an electric arc. A useful application of this low voltage and high current arc discharge became possible only once mechanical generators were constructed. Charles Francis Brush developed a dynamo, an electric generator, in 1878, that was able to supply electricity for his design of arc lights. Those were deployed first in Philadelphia and by 1881 a number of cities had electric arc public lights. Once that happened, the application and new discoveries for the use of the electric arc followed. Electric arc for illumination was certainly in the forefront. First, electric light extended greatly the human activities into the night and second, public street electric lights, attracting masses of spectators, were the source of admiration, inspiration, and no doubt, more invention.

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The ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology is now featuring a focus issue on Thermoelectric Materials & Devices: Phonon Engineering, Advanced Materials and Thermal Transport. The issue reflects the symposia from the 228th ECS Meeting on Thermoelectric and Thermal Interface Materials in Phoenix, AZ.

In the issue’s preface, the authors tell us that advances in this field, “. . . can inspire developments in thermoelectrics that may underpin the next major advance in energy harvesting and cooling and ultimately improve the quality of our devices, and help drive energy efficiency and a greener society.”

The focus issue discusses advances, challenges, and applications in thermoelectrics and its various sub-fields such as phonon transport physics, materials science, electronics, condensed matter physics, engineering, the chemistry of materials, and processing technology.

The Society would like to thank the authors, reviewers, and editors who contributed to this focus issue. Special thank you to Colm O’Dwyer from University College Cork, Renkun Chen from the University of California, San Diego, Jr-Hau He from King Abdulla University of Science and Technology, Jaeho Lee from the University of California Irvine, and Kafil M. Razeeb from University College Cork.

Read the focus issue in the ECS Digital Library.