The Electrochemical Society hosted Prof. Raphaële J. Clément’s live online webinar, “From order to disorder: NMR insights into ionic conduction in battery materials,” on October 27, 2021. Below are answers to questions posed during the presentation.

Raphaële Clément is an Assistant Professor in the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), U.S. She received her PhD in Chemistry in 2016 from the University of Cambridge, UK, working under the supervision of Prof. Clare Grey. Her doctoral work focused on the study of layered sodium transition metal oxide cathodes for Na-ion secondary batteries. She then joined Prof. Gerbrand Ceder’s group at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), U.S., focusing on cation-disordered rock salt oxyfluorides for Li-ion battery applications. She joined the UCSB faculty in 2018. Her primary research focus is the development and implementation of magnetic resonance techniques (experimental and computational) for the study of battery materials and beyond, with a strong emphasis on operando tools. She is an Associate Editor for Battery Energy, a new open access journal by Wiley. (more…)

Congratulations to Muhammad Mominur Rahman of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and Yang Yu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the 2021 recipients of the Battery Division Student Research Award Sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Research & Development.

Muhammed Mominur Rahman

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Michael Hecht responds to ECS Lecture questions

Michael H. Hecht delivered the ECS Lecture, Electrolysis on Mars: MOXIE and the Perseverance Mission, at the Plenary Session of the 240th ECS Meeting on October 11, 2021. Answers to questions posed during his lecture follow.

Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Michael Hecht is the Associate Director for Research Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack Observatory. Since 2013, he has been Principal Investigator for the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument on NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover (Perseverance) mission, a technology demonstrator to validate the instrumentation and methodology to produce large quantities of oxygen from the Martian carbon dioxide atmosphere using solid oxide electrolysis (SOXE). From September 2019 to August 2020, Professor Hecht served as Deputy Project Director for the Event Horizon Telescope, the consortium that in 2019 delivered the first image of a black hole. His diverse experiences span planetary missions, observational astrophysics, space instrument and SmallSat development, planetary science, and project, program, and line management. Prior to joining MIT, he worked for 30 years at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), developing instrumentation for planetary missions. There he achieved the designation of Senior Research Scientist. At JPL, he served as Principal Investigator and Instrument Manager for the MECA (Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer) instrument on the Phoenix Mars mission. MECA operated through the summer of 2009, with major findings in microscopy, the physical chemistry of water in soil, and notably, in aqueous soil chemistry using electrochemical methods. 

Prof. Hecht received his PhD in Applied Physics at Stanford University in 1982 after completing his BA in Physics at Princeton University and MS at MIT. His research has garnered numerous awards including the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and 1990 Lew Allen Award for Excellence. His h-index is 51 with over 11,500 citations. (more…)

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 240th ECS Meeting Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells & Electrolyzers (PEFC&E) symposia-funded best poster and presentation awards!

Every meeting, ECS presents several awards of this type through the generous funding of individual symposium sponsors. Please take a moment to help celebrate the excellent work of the authors listed below.

If you missed the opportunity to view these presentations, there is still time! All presentations are accessible until November 7, 2021. Pre-registration is required.

Poster and presentation winners

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Dr. Ahok Vijh

The ECS Canada Section is now accepting nominations for the Canada Section Electrochemical Award, established in 1981 to recognize significant contributions to the advancement of electrochemistry in Canada. The recipient’s achievements are recognized with a gold medal at the section’s 2022 annual meeting.

This award is conferred every four years. Ashok Vijh, a distinguished scientist and founding member of the Hydro-Québec Institute of Research, received the last award in 2018.

Consider your fellow Canada Section electrochemists and acknowledge their hard work by submitting a nomination today! Please review the full award details carefully before completing the application.

The ECS Canada Section bestows four awards that are part of the ECS Honors and Awards Program—a program that has recognized scientific accomplishments in the Society’s disciplines for decades.

Learn more about the ECS Canada Section awards and the ECS Honors and Awards Program!

Sponsored by BioLogic

Through this award sponsored by BioLogic since 2012, the ECS Energy Technology Division recognizes the accomplishments of a promising young engineering or science graduate student in the fields pertaining to this division. Congratulations to Charles Tai-Chieh Wan, the winner of this year’s ECS Energy Technology Division Graduate Student Award!

Charles Tai-Chieh Wan

Charles Tai-Chieh Wan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S., under the co-supervision of Prof. Fikile R. Brushett and Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang. In 2017, he completed a BS summa cum laude in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University, U.S.

Wan’s graduate thesis work focuses on developing designer electrode microstructures and surfaces for redox flow batteries by advancing unconventional yet potentially beneficial paradigms. His research efforts include leveraging principles of phase separation to synthesize and probe new electrode microstructures, investigating thin-film organic coatings to mediate the electrode-electrolyte interface, and examining biomass-derived materials for use in redox flow batteries.

ECS Honors & Awards Program

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The newly formed ECS Pacific Northwest Section is happy to announce that Dr. Wei Wang, Director of the Energy Storage Materials Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, is the first recipient of the section’s Electrochemistry Research Award Sponsored by Gamry Instruments.  

The award was established to recognize excellence in electrochemistry and solid state science and technology research by an independent scientist or engineer working in Washington, Oregon or Idaho.

Wei Wang

Dr. Wei Wang is Director of the Energy Storage Materials Initiative, a multi-million-dollar, multi-year project at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to fundamentally transform energy material discovery and development through a combined experiment/modeling/data approach. He also serves as the chief scientist and technical lead on stationary energy storage research at PNNL, with a primary focus on developing advanced redox flow battery technologies. (more…)