This past May, ECS presented Dr. Henry White with the first ever Allen J. Bard Award at the 227^th ECS Meeting in Chicago. A former student of Bard himself, Dr. White has worked with his research team to advance new methods to determine the structure of biological polymers like DNA, develop novel batteries with increased energy storage capacity, and investigate the delivery of drugs through human skin via electrical currents. ECS is delighted to begin the tradition of the Allen J. Bard Award so auspiciously.

Yet, the inaugural presentation of the Bard Award at the 227^th ECS Meeting was also a culmination: the satisfying conclusion to a story of hard work and generosity and the enduring connection between an educator and the lives he impacted. The desire to create an award in honor of Dr. Bard first arose in May 2013. Through the generous outpouring of many of Bard’s former students, ECS was able to fully endow the award in only two years. Thanks to this support, the Allen J. Bard Award will continue to honor the achievements of outstanding electrochemists for years to come. Below, please see a timeline of the Allen J. Bard Award, including some of Dr. Bard’s major accomplishments.

To further celebrate the impact of Dr. Bard, ECS now hopes to establish a symposium in his honor, which will occur in conjunction with the presentation of the award. Topics for the symposium will be guided by the award winner and by that spirit of creativity and intellectual adventurousness characteristic of Bard and his work.

To support the Bard Award endowment, please consider donating online.

More and more people are looking toward nanomaterials to help solve issues in the energy infrastructure. Not only could this technology lead to more efficient and cost effective renewable energy sources, but could also help the development of devices that remove pollutants from the air and water. In fact, nanotechnology has such a vast scope that there is potential for it to impact almost all areas of society.

“There is not a field that is not touched,” said nanomaterials expert Francis D’Souza of the University of North Texas. “It is a group of very eminent scientists exploring the possibilities in every single field. You can expect big discoveries and breakthroughs.”

While nanomaterials are infiltrating everything from electronics to biomedical applications, many scientists have shift their primary focus to energy harvesting.

“There are so many new capabilities that can be exploited with nanotechnology, from dramatic improvements to solar conversion efficiency to battery systems with higher storage capacity and faster charging and discharging cycles to miniaturized power management systems, so we can have energy storage that can last for a long time,” said IBM’s Lili Deligianni.

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Lili Deligianni is a Research Scientist and Principal Investigator at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Her innovative work in chemical engineering has led to cutting-edge developments in chip technology and thin film solar cells. Lili has been with ECS for many years and currently serves as the Society’s Secretary.

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.

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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.

P.S. Employers can post open positions for free!

Electroanalytical Sales Scientist
Pine Research Instrumentation – Durham, NC
The position encompasses critical aspects of sales and support for the electrochemical instrumentation product line offered by Pine Research Instrumentation. This position couples deep understanding of electrochemical science with the ability to communicate and interact with other people. Successful individuals in this position enjoy the unique chance to blend interpersonal skills (for sales and marketing purposes) with scientific knowledge (for technical support and advice).

PhD Student in Electrochemical Conversion of Biomass
Ohio University – Athens, OH
The Center for Electrochemical Engineering Research (CEER) at Ohio University is searching for PhD students to join a team of researchers working on electrochemical conversion of biomass. The successful candidate will develop materials and processes for electrochemical conversion of biomass to fuels and industrial chemicals, including developing electrocatalysts and reactor systems. Product stream analysis is an integral component of this program.

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Logan Streu, ECS Content Associate & Assistant to the CCO, recently came across a video from The Scholarly Kitchen explaining how ORCID works (with dolls as visual aids).

Learn more about ORCID! Check out Logan’s articles on the benefits of ORCID identifiers:

• “Have You Registered for Your ORCID ID Yet?“
• “ORCID Brings Author Level Metrics to the Table“

Find out more about signing-up for ORCID!

In an effort to address climate change, President Obama is setting the United States on the path towards a clean energy economy.

Recently, President Obama announced the country’s plan to drive alternative energy innovation and accelerate the transition to clean energy. Growing on the already established ENERGY STAR program, the executive actions focus on implementing clean, efficient, and affordable energy technologies across multiple sectors of the United States.

Highlights

• More funding for energy projects utilizing innovative technology, including an additional $1 billion
• A total of 11 projects across the country will receive $24 million for projects that have the potential to double the amount of energy a solar panel can produce
• Bringing a 485-megawatt photovoltaic facility to produce enough energy to power more than 145,000 homes
• PACE (Property-Assessed Clean Energy) project to make alternative energy more easily accessible for single-families

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The science behind climate change is alarming. Concentrations of greenhouse gases are rising at an alarming rate, land ice is dropping by 258 billion metric tons per year, and every passing year is proving to be the warmest year on record. Even with all of this information, it is difficult for some to grasp the complications climate change is causing due to the fact that an average person’s day-to-day life has remained relatively unharmed.

“You can tell people that all these fossil fuels we’re using and all the CO₂ that’s building up in the air is going to cause terrific problems. It’s only going to be when lower Manhattan is underwater that they’re going to start to respond,” said Allen J. Bard, the unofficial father of modern electrochemistry.

What Does Climate Change Look Like?

In order to make the reality of climate change more tangible, scientists with the Department of Energy are launching their SPRUCE (Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Climatic and Environmental Change) project to naturally demonstrate what the world could look like if there is no action taken on climate change.

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Fuel cells have been receiving a lot of attention in the scientific domain as one of the most promising alternative energy sources. When applying fuel cell technology to both the grid and automobiles, one issue is persistent: cost. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory (ANNL) have been looking for a way to combat the price issues. Now, a team of researchers led by ECS member Di-Jia Liu have found a potential way to utilize fuel cells without the high cost of development and commercialization.

A New Catalyst

The team’s development revolves around the notion of using naturally abundant materials without sacrificing efficiency. Current, fuel cells work off a platinum catalyst, which is both expensive and scarce. The new catalyst eliminates the need for the precious material, all while demonstrating performance rates comparable to that of a platinum catalyst.

The scientists developed the new catalyst via the synthesis of a highly efficient, nanofibrous non-precious metal catalyst. If this technique proves to be commercially viable, it transition into automotive technology and extend the range of electric vehicles and potentially eliminate the need for charging.

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Two key ECS members have recently received prestigious professorship awards from the University of Florida’s Department of Chemical Engineering. The department has recognized Mark Orazem and Fan Ren for their outstanding commitment to education and innovative research in chemical engineering.

Mark Orazem was awarded the ExxonMobil Gator Chemical Engineering Alumni Professorship for his excellence in research and tremendous impact in academia. Orazem, an ECS Fellow, joined the Society in 1978 and has previously been recognized for his excellence in student impact in 2012 when he received the ECS Henry B. Linford Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Orazem is a recognized expert on impedance spectroscopy. His research helps to provide valuable insight into such diverse systems as batteries, fuel cells, corroding metals, and human skin. His research ranges in scope—from assisting in the development of biosensors for companies such as Medtronic to engineering dewatering mining waste streams for Mosaic. He served for ten years as an associate editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and authored the seminal Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy.

(PS: You can take a course instructed by him at the 228th ECS Meeting!)

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Fan Ren was awarded the Fred and Bonnie Edie Professorship, representing the highest standards of chemical engineering and serving as a role model for students. Ren is an ECS Fellow and an active member of the ECS Electronics & Photonics Division.

His groundbreaking research centers around electronic material and devices, where he pioneered the use of wide bandgap semiconductor sensors for chemical and biological detections. His acceptance lecture upon receiving the Gordon E. Moore Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Science and Technology in 2013 focused on this topic of researcher, detailing the cross-section between semiconductors and biosensors for medical applications such as glucose monitoring, biomarker detection for infectious diseases, and cancer diagnosis.

With the use of technical terms and complex formals, scientific journal articles are typically a difficult read for the non-expert. However, sometimes scientists themselves also have a difficult time wading through the highly complicated terms in these studies.

A new analysis of 140,000 scientific papers has recently been released, suggesting that studies with shorter titles are more often cited than those with long titles. The reason? Papers with shorter titles may be generally more concise and easier to comprehend.

The analysis began by looking at 20,000 of the most highly cited scientific papers published from 2007 to 2010. Each year consistently showed that papers with shorter titles received more attention.

This from Popular Science:

The situation gets more complicated, though, when you take journal rankings into account. Papers published in more prestigious journals tend to get more citations. Once the authors controlled for that factor, the correlation between shorter titles and higher citations only held up for the years 2007 to 2010. But the results do show that, overall, journals that publish papers with shorter titles tend to receive more citations per paper.

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