Join the ECS Canada Section for its Spring 2021 Meeting on Saturday, May 15.

Keynote speaker

Electrochemistry for a Sustainable and Healthier Future
Dr. Wolfgang Schuhmann, FRSC
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany 

Other confirmed speakers

Shelley Minteer, University of Utah, U.S.
Sanela Martic, Trent University, Canada
Maria de Rosa, Carleton University, Canada
David Herbert, University of Manitoba, Canada
Leanne Chen, University of Guelph, Canada
Philippe Dauphin Ducharme, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada (more…)

Friends,

We are indeed living in a unique and challenging time in human history. Never before, in the modern age, have we faced a pandemic with such a profound, global impact as COVID-19. Although we are still very much in the initial grip of this unprecedented catastrophe, it is vital—perhaps more than ever before—that we recognize and celebrate Earth Day and its 50th anniversary. (more…)

Join ECS San Francisco Section on December 12 for a presentation by Yijin Liu:

An Integrated Multi-modal X-ray Microscopy for Energy Material Science

Yijin Liu
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Menlo Park, CA

When: Thursday, December 12, 2019
Time: 1700h
Where: Sakura Bistro
388 9th Street, Oakland, CA 94607

Free participation; $35 flat fee for dinner 

RSVP to sfsectionecs@gmail.com (more…)

Long Luo, the featured speaker at ECS Detroit Section’s November 21 meeting, presents:

“Bubble-based electrochemical methods for detection of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water”

Long Luo
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan (more…)

Marshall Medoff shares his work with Lesley Stahl. Photo Credit: 60 Minutes

Marshall Medoff will make you think twice about what is possible. The 81-year-old took an interest in the environment 25 years ago and decided he was going to take it upon himself to stop global warming. With no science background or financial support, Medoff took it upon himself to “save the world.” For more than a decade, he worked alone out of a garage at a storage facility, educating himself and working towards his goal; his solution, transform inedible plant life into environmentally friendly transportation fuels in a clean, cost-effective alternative.

“Cellulose is everywhere. I mean, there’s just so much cellulose in the world and nobody had managed to use any of it,” explained Medoff, as he chatted with correspondent Lesley Stahl on 60 minutes. “I said, ‘Wow, if I can break through this, we can increase the resources of the world maybe by a third or more.’ Who knows?” (more…)

Most take the world around them for granted, never expecting anything extraordinary out of what’s always proven to be, well, extra ordinary. According to Futurism, that’s what many felt about a methylene blue dye used to dye fabric in textile mills. Its remnants even considered a nuisance and a hazard, often making its way from the mill and into the environment, where it’s no easy task to clean up.

So researchers from the University at Buffalo began experimenting with the industrial dye, in an attempt to reuse the wasted material, turning the methylene blue wastewater into an environmentally safe material – in batteries.

(more…)

By: Gunnar W. Schade, Texas A&M University

Urban air pollution in the U.S. has been decreasing near continuously since the 1970s.

Federal regulations, notably the Clean Air Act passed by President Nixon, to reduce toxic air pollutants such as benzene, a hydrocarbon, and ozone, a strong oxidant, effectively lowered their abundance in ambient air with steady progress.

But about 10 years ago, the picture on air pollutants in the U.S. started to change. The “fracking boom” in several different parts of the nation led to a new source of hydrocarbons to the atmosphere, affecting abundances of both toxic benzene and ozone, including in areas that were not previously affected much by such air pollution.

As a result, in recent years there has been a spike of research to determine what the extent of emissions are from fracked oil and gas wells – called “unconventional” sources in the industry. While much discussion has surrounded methane emissions, a greenhouse gas, less attention has been paid to air toxics.

(more…)

The fifth international Electrochemical Energy Summit recently took place during the 228th ECS Meeting. From environmental damage to economic implications to political involvement, the summit served as a forum for the top researchers in energy technology to discuss the most pressing issues in renewable energy and inspire technological solutions.

During the summit, we gathered some key speakers from energy research institutions across the U.S. to talk about challenges in energy storage, roadblocks for implementing renewables, and the role government plays in changing the energy infrastructure.

The podcast is moderated by ECS vice president Krishnan Rajeshwar, with guests David Wesolowski, The Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport (FIRST) Energy Frontier Research Center; M. Stanley Whittingham, NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES); Gary Rubloff, Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage (NEES) Energy Frontier Research Center; and Paul Fenter, Center for Electrochemical Energy Science (CEES).

Listen and download this episode and others for free through the iTunes Store, SoundCloud, or our RSS Feed. You can also find us on Stitcher.