Join the ECS Georgia Institute of Technology Chapter and ECS Georgia Section for a free half-day conference featuring speaker William E. Mustain. Gather at Georgia Tech to share ideas, present work, and form new collaborations with graduate students and post doc researchers in the field of electrochemistry (including fuel cells, batteries, electrocatalysis, and bio-electrochemistry).

When:  Friday, September 27, 2019

Schedule:
1000h  |     Check-in and Networking
1100h  |     Featured Talk
1200h  |     Lunch and Poster Setup
1245 h |     Student Poster Contest
1430 h |     Award Ceremony (more…)

Sushanta Mitra, lead author, mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor at the University of Waterloo, and executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology.

“There are a lot of sensors that have been made, a lot of reliable sensors which work really well independently; however, the decision-making always requires a human,” said Ajit Khosla, sensors technical editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) and chair of The Electrochemical Society’s Sensor Division. Which is why the paper, “Artificial Intelligence Based Mobile Application for Water Quality Monitoring” piqued Khosla’s interest in particular.

“AI powered sensors are the future.”

“This is the first time that we have received and accepted a journal paper which involves artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, water quality management, and sensors,” said Khosla. “This work represents an example of one of those initial steps towards a smart technology driven sustainable society where data acquired by sensors helps AI make human-like decisions or human-like operations. Quantum sensors, quantum computing, and AI will transform the way we live and will play an integral role in achieving sustainability and a sustainable world. AI powered sensors are the future.” (more…)

Venkataraman Thangadurai, University of Calgary chemistry professor and associate head.

University of Calgary Chemistry Professor Venkataraman Thangadurai’s background in solid-state batteries, solid oxide fuel cells, proton conducting SOFCs, and gas sensors have made him a source for information over the years. Because of this, the longtime ECS and battery division member has been invited to present several presentations this spring.

International Battery Event

This March,  Thangadurai will speak at the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit taking place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The annual event showcases state of the art energy storage technology developments for consumer, automotive, military, and industrial applications, as well as offer attendees insights from guest speakers sharing their thoughts on significant material advancements, product development, manufacturing, and application of battery systems and enabling technologies.

ECS Biannual Meetings

Similar to the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit, ECS hosts biannual meetings on a broader scale, including a diverse number of topics in the electrochemical, solid state science, and technology field, of which Thangadurai has been a recurring speaker of.

In 2018, he attended AiMES as an invited guest speaker presenting his work, “Chemical and Electrochemical Stability of Fast Lithium Ion Conducting Garnet-Type Metal Oxides in H₂o, Aqueous Solution, CO₂, Li and S,” available in ECS Meeting Abstracts.

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Credit: ACS Publications

Most of us don’t stop to think about it, but the skin on our body is pretty remarkable. The largest organ in the body can detect pressure, temperature changes, pain, and touch, all made possible thanks to the many nerves and receptors underneath our skin. With all that said, it’s easy to understand why it’s hard to duplicate this unique organ. But, according to ScienceDaily, researchers are working to do just that. Their goal is to reproduce and transfer these qualities into a manmade electronic skin technology that can be used in prosthetic devices, wearable health monitors, robotics, and virtual reality. (more…)

Image: A. Lange & Söhne

A watch is often seen as a mark of elegance, power, and taste. Take Daniel Craig for example, the actor is the staple definition of suave and sleek, sporting thousands of dollars worth of Omega watches throughout the 007 franchise. But, how well do they hold up to an electrochemically built watch?

According to In Compliance Magazine, Empa scientists have created the next generation of watch springs, built to be scientifically powerful, tiny, and extremely durable. (more…)

In the remote hills of the Appalachian Mountains lies what’s considered the gold of today’s day and age — Quartz, the basis of the modern computer chip. A recently published Wired article, The Ultra-Pure, Super-Secret Sand That Makes Your Phone Possible, discusses the pristine sand, a key player in manufacturing the silicon used to make the chips. From the processor in your laptops to the processor in your cell phones and tablets, all of which likely derived from the sand.

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Hieu Quang Pham, the Korea Section Student Award winner for 2018.

Nomination Deadline: September 30, 2018

ECS recognizes outstanding technical achievements in electrochemistry and solid-state science and technology through its Honors & Awards Program. There are many deserving members of the Korea Section among us and this is an opportunity to highlight their contributions.

We are currently accepting nominations for the following award:

Korea Section Student Award was established in 2005 to recognize academic accomplishments in any area of science or engineering in which electrochemical and/or solid state science and technology is the central consideration. The award is intended to encourage students who are pursuing a PhD at a Korean university to initiate or continue careers in the field.

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By: Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

The world is full of connected devices – and more are coming. In 2017, there were an estimated 8.4 billion internet-enabled thermostats, cameras, streetlights and other electronics. By 2020 that number could exceed 20 billion, and by 2030 there could be 500 billion or more. Because they’ll all be online all the time, each of those devices – whether a voice-recognition personal assistant or a pay-by-phone parking meter or a temperature sensor deep in an industrial robot – will be vulnerable to a cyberattack and could even be part of one.

Today, many “smart” internet-connected devices are made by large companies with well-known brand names, like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung, which have both the technological systems and the marketing incentive to fix any security problems quickly. But that’s not the case in the increasingly crowded world of smaller internet-enabled devices, like light bulbs, doorbells and even packages shipped by UPS. Those devices – and their digital “brains” – are typically made by unknown companies, many in developing countries, without the funds or ability – or the brand-recognition need – to incorporate strong security features.

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Lenses are no longer necessary for some microscopes, according to the engineers developing FlatScope, a thin fluorescent microscope whose abilities promise to surpass those of old-school devices.

A paper in Science Advances describes a wide-field microscope thinner than a credit card, small enough to sit on a fingertip, and capable of micrometer resolution over a volume of several cubic millimeters.

FlatScope eliminates the tradeoff that hinders traditional microscopes in which arrays of lenses can either gather less light from a large field of view or gather more light from a smaller field.

Rice University engineers Ashok Veeraraghavan, Jacob Robinson, Richard Baraniuk, and their labs began developing the device as part of a federal initiative by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as an implantable, high-resolution neural interface. But the device’s potential is much greater.

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Researchers have created an algorithm that could work alongside an extremely sensitive laser technology that reflects off nearby objects to help self-driving cars see around corners.

Imagine that a driverless car is making its way through a winding neighborhood street, about to make a sharp turn onto a road where a child’s ball is rolling across the street. Although no person in the car can see that ball, the car stops to avoid it.

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