The following is a roundup of the top articles published on the ECS Redcat Blog in 2017.
1. Impact factors on the rise
The journal impact factors for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology both rose by 8 percent this year. In July, Andrew Ryan, publication specialist at ECS, reported on the growth and what it means for ECS publications.
As a nonprofit society in constant competition with larger publishers with greater resources, ECS prides itself on disseminating the most groundbreaking and sought-after research to those who can use it to confront and resolve the world’s issues. This year’s JIF data indicates that ECS is not only doing its job, but steadily improving at it.
2. ECS shows its vision for the future of publishing
ECS celebrated 2017 International Open Access Week by taking down its paywalls for the third consecutive year. By making over 132,000 articles and abstracts free and accessible to everyone, the Society hopes to give the world a preview of what complete open access to peer-reviewed scientific research could look like.
“More access to research means faster progress in solving global challenges in human health and the sustainability of the planet,” Mary Yess, ECS’s chief content officer/publisher, said in the article. “Free the Science can assist people all over the world who need the access to research to make critical developments, and we’re taking the opportunity of Open Access Week to show the world our vision.”
3. John Goodenough’s latest battery research
In March, John Goodenough once again made research headlines with his solid state battery cells. The research, which was controversial in its own right, reported developments that address many of the problems inherent in today’s battery technology, opening the door for everything from electric cars to grid energy storage.
4. Most cited researchers
This year’s list of highly cited researchers included a handful of ECS members. Marcelle Austin, ECS board relations specialist, compiled a short list of those members in November.
Some of our most distinguished ECS members have been noted this year as the “world’s most influential scientific minds” often listed multiple times in the categories of physics, chemistry and materials science.
5. Importance of electrochemistry
During the 232nd ECS Meeting, Steven Chu delivered the ECS Lecture, “The Role of Electrochemistry in our Transition to Sustainable Energy.” Chu previously served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Obama and was the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics.
During his talk, Chu focused on the risks society is facing due to changing climate, the evolving energy landscape, and the role of electrochemistry in providing critical technological advances.
6. Center for Open Science co-founder on disseminating research
In August, we talked to Brian Nosek, co-founder of the Center for Open Science, about open access, current challenges in academic publishing, and the impact factor. Nosek was a speaker at ECS’s OpenCon, the Society’s first large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated.
“We believe an open exchange of ideas accelerates scientific progress toward solving our most persistent problems,” Nosek said in the article. “The challenges of disease, poverty, education, social justice, and the environment are too important and too urgent to waste funding on studies lacking rigor, outcomes that are never shared, and trying to extend results that are irreproducible.”
7. Technical editor talks publishing
As part of our ongoing five questions segment, we sat down with Journal of The Electrochemical Society technical editor, Venkat Subramanian, to discuss the evolution of scholarly publishing and the importance of electrochemistry.
“The training of a future workforce of broadly educated engineers and scientists, with strong technical skills will be essential,” Subramanian said in the article. “In this important area of research, electrochemists and electrochemical engineers are needed to play an active role in addressing global challenges.”
8. Toyota fellowships paying off
The ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship was established in 2014 to encourage young professors and scholars to pursue research in green energy technologies. This year, we caught up with a few of the fellows to check in on research developments and see what opportunities the fellowship has provided.
Find out more about Yogesh Surendranath’s work in methane to methanol conversion and David Go’s efforts in transforming carbon dioxide.
9. Benefits in making graded electrodes
In October, “Is There a Benefit in Employing Graded Electrodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries?” was published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. The authors of the research further discussed their finding in a post, tackling a controversial topic and introducing a free electrode design tool that they had developed.
10. Successful ECS Data Sciences Hack Day
During the 232nd ECS Meeting, ECS held its first ECS Data Science Hack Day. The event was a foray into building an electrochemical data science and open source community from the ground up.
Matthew Murbach, co-organizer of the event, wrote an article in the wake of Hack Day summarizing what was accomplished and some of the projects that were developed during the time.
11. Lithium-ion battery celebrates 25 years
It’s been just over 25 years since the lithium-ion battery was commercialized, paving the way for ground-braking technologies such as electromobility and grid storage. In March, ECS published the Journal of The Electrochemical Society Focus Issue of Selected Papers from IMLB 2016 with Invited Papers Celebrating 25 Years of Lithium Ion Batteries.
All 66 papers published in the focus issue are open access.
12. Developing longer lasting batteries
ECS member Daniel P. Abraham published a paper in May in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, “Transition Metal Dissolution, Ion Migration, Electrocatalytic Reduction and Capacity Loss in Lithium-Ion Fuel Cells,” which addresses the question of why your battery doesn’t age well. We caught up with Abraham to talk about this work and what it could mean for future battery development.
“Most of the focus, when it comes to batteries, has been on increasing energy density, but batteries also need longer lives,” Abraham said in the article. “It’s extremely important to solve these cell performance loss issues because then technologies, such as electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage, can become more prevalent and viable.”
13. Fellowships come full circle
As the 2016-2017 winners of the ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship came to the tail end of their research period, we sat down with fellow Joaquin Rodriguez Lopez and Paul Fanson, manager of Toyota’s North American Research Strategy Office, to find out more about the implications of the fellowship.
“In 10 or 20 years I’d like to be able to look back at list of people who have benefited from this program and have done some incredibly good science and say, ‘Look, I’m part of the second generation that won that award,’” Rodriguez Lopez said in the article. “In 20 years, maybe I will look back at this proposal and realize how much impact it had on my long-term career, and I will be able to pinpoint that this program is what made the difference.”
14. Biodegradable batteries
Juan Pablo Esquivel, member of a research team involved in ECS’s Science for Solving Society’s Problems, touched based to share the results of his powerPAD research.
“The whole team involved in this development is very happy with the outcome of this project,” Esquivel said in the article. “What started as a crazy idea has turned into a working prototype with a very promising future. We will continue working on this topic to push forward this battery concept and exploit all its capabilities.”
15. Mathematical modeling of electrochemical systems
In August, ECS published the Journal of The Electrochemical Society Focus Issue on Mathematical Modeling of Electrochemical Systems at Multiple Scales in Honor of John Newman. All 72 papers published in the issue are available open access in the ECS Digital Library.
