A new kind of lithium sulfur battery could be more efficient, less expensive, and safer than currently available lithium batteries. “We demonstrated this method in a coin battery,” says Donghai Wang, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State. “But, I think it could eventually become big enough for cell phones, drones, and even bigger for electric vehicles.” Lithium sulfur batteries should be a promising candidate for the next generation of rechargeable batteries, but they are not without problems. For…
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By: Timothy J. Jorgensen, Georgetown University Ask people to name the most famous historical woman of science and their answer will likely be: Madame Marie Curie. Push further and ask what she did, and they might say it was something related to radioactivity. (She actually discovered the radioisotopes radium and polonium.) Some might also know that she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. (She actually won two.) But few will know she was also a major hero…
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Stephen Maldonado is an associate professor at the University of Michigan, where he leads a research group that focuses on the study of heterogeneous charge transfer processes relevant to the fields of electronics, chemical sensing, and energy conversion/storage technologies. He was recently reappointed as an associate editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) in the area of physical and analytical electrochemistry, electrocatalysis, and photoelectrochemistry. ECS: When did you become an ECS associate editor? What made you pursue an…
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Researchers have created a way to look inside fuel cells to see the chemical processes that lead them to breakdown. Fuel cells could someday generate electricity for nearly any device that’s battery-powered, including automobiles, laptops, and cellphones. Typically using hydrogen as fuel and air as an oxidant, fuel cells are cleaner than internal combustion engines because they produce power via electrochemical reactions. Since water is their primary product, they considerably reduce pollution. The oxidation, or breakdown, of a fuel cell’s…
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Nine new issues of ECS Transactions (ECST) have just been published for the upcoming 232nd ECS Meeting. The papers in these issues of ECST will be presented in National Harbor, MD, October 1-5, 2017. ECST volume 80, issues 1 to 9 can now be accessed online through the ECS Digital Library. These issues are also available for purchase as an electronic (PDF) edition through the ECS Online Store:

A new device has given scientists a nanoscale glimpse of crevice and pitting corrosion as it happens. Corrosion affects almost everything made of metal—cars, boats, underground pipes, and even the fillings in your teeth. It carries a steep price tag—trillions of dollars annually—not mention, the potential safety, environmental, and health hazards it poses. “Corrosion has been a major problem for a very long time,” says Jacob Israelachvili, a chemical engineering professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Confined spaces…
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Scientists have figured out how to make tiny individual films—each just a few atoms high—and stack them for use in new kinds of electronics. Over the past half-century, scientists have shaved silicon films down to just a wisp of atoms in pursuit of smaller, faster electronics. For the next set of breakthroughs, though, they’ll need new ways to build even tinier and more powerful devices. In a study that appears in Nature, researchers describe an innovative method to make stacks…
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Want to see Electrochemistry in Action and ride in one of the world’s first commercial fuel cell cars while at the 232nd ECS Meeting? Join us for a Ride-and Learn on Monday, October 2 from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm in front of the main entrance of the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. This Ride-and-Learn is open to all ECS meeting attendees. First come, first serve. Fuel cell cars run on hydrogen fuel, use a fuel cell that converts…
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Researchers have developed a new way to alleviate many of the issues that make magnetic data storage for computer hard disks and other data storage hardware problematic, including speed and energy use. For almost seventy years now, magnetic tapes and hard disks have been used for data storage in computers. In spite of many new technologies that have arisen in the meantime, the controlled magnetization of a data storage medium remains the first choice for archiving information because of its…
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Engineers have created a high-frequency electronic chip potentially capable of transmitting tens of gigabits of data per second, much faster than the fastest internet available today. Omeed Momeni, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of California, Davis, and doctoral student Hossein Jalili designed the chip using a phased array antenna system. Phased array systems funnel the energy from multiple sources into a single beam that can be narrowly steered and directed to a specific location. “Phased…
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