The 2017 ECS Twin Cities Section Symposium will take place Friday, April 7 in Saint Paul, MN. Attendance is free and includes talks, lunch, and the Innovation Center Tour showing hundreds of 3M technologies, and a poster session. Register for the symposium. Confirmed speakers: Johna Leddy, University of Iowa Electrochemically Silent Films on Electrodes – Means and Methods Electrochemically inert films on electrodes alter properties of transport, selectivity, and kinetics to enable new devices and measurement methods. Examples include: density…
Continue reading
Chemists have engineered a molecule that uses light or electricity to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide—a carbon-neutral fuel source—more efficiently than any other method of “carbon reduction.” “If you can create an efficient enough molecule for this reaction, it will produce energy that is free and storable in the form of fuels,” says study leader and Liang-shi Li, associate professor in the chemistry department at Indiana University Bloomington. “This study is a major leap in that direction.” Burning fuel—such…
Continue reading
Take the time to honor and support your friends and colleagues, be sure to add the division award winners’ talks to your calendar, they are scheduled in various symposia throughout the week. Dielectric Science and Technology Division Thomas D. Callinan Award Monday, May 29 | 1400-1440h Norwich Dielectrics for MOS Integrated Circuits By Hiroshi Iwai Hiroshi Iwai has worked in the semiconductor industry for 26 years. After receiving BE and PhD degrees from the University of Tokyo, he worked at…
Continue reading
Sometimes the biggest advancements are the smallest in size. A multidisciplinary team from Sandia National Laboratories recently demonstrated that notion by using nanoparticles and a nanoconfinement system to improve the performance of hydrogen storage materials. The researchers believe that this development is a step in the right direction to improve efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. Currently, hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles store hydrogen as a high-pressure gas. However, the researchers argue that a solid material would be able…
Continue reading
The Electrochemical Society was founded 115 years ago as the American Electrochemical Society. That’s based on the inaugural meeting held April 3-5, 1902 in Philadelphia, PA. Twenty papers were presented and recorded in Transactions of the American Electrochemical Society, Vol. 1, No. 1. You could say the Society was born out of the indifference of what was known at the time as the Council of the American Chemical Society. Around this time, ACS took no action on a proposal to…
Continue reading
Researchers from Oregon State university have developed the first battery that uses only hydronium ions as the charge carrier, which the team believes could yield promising results for the future of sustainable energy storage. Particularly, the researchers are interested in the area of stationary storage. This type of energy storage primarily refers to on-grid storage to harness power from intermittent sources, such as wind or solar, for later use in general distribution. Stationary energy storage is vital for the energy…
Continue reading
Today’s electronics consumers all have one thing in common: a desire for smartphones and other portable devices to have longer battery lives. Researchers from the University College Cork are looking to deliver just that with a new development that extends the cycle life of the lithium-ion battery to near record-length by using a key ingredient found in sunscreen. The method, developed by ECS member and vice chair of the Society’s Electronics and Photonics Division, Colm O’Dwyer, and past members David…
Continue reading
Many researchers agree that microbial fuel cells have a range of promising applications. However, before they can reach widespread applications, researchers need to make them both cheaper and more efficient. A team of researchers from the University of Rochester believe they’re making progress on that front with the development of a paper electrode. Microbial fuel cells drive electric current by using bacteria and mirroring bacterial interactions found in nature. In the 21st century, microbial fuel cells found new application in…
Continue reading
As the demand for newer, faster electronics rises, so does the amount of e-waste across the globe. E-waste refers to discarded electrical and electronic equipment, the amount of which has risen by 63 percent in just the past five years. Globally, it’s observed that the volume of e-waste has hit an astonishing new peak, totaling in at over 40 tons – seven percent of which includes communication devices such as smartphones and computers. The challenge of rising levels of e-waste…
Continue reading
“We all need to understand each other and what we can do together to benefit the greater community.” -Way Kuo Way Kuo is president of the City University of Hong Kong. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Russian Academy of Engineering. He was the first foreign expert invited to discuss nuclear safety following the Fukushima incident. He argues that a holistic view of energy…
Continue reading
