Sheela Berchmans, CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute chief scientist.

Guest post by: Sheela Berchmans, chief scientist at the CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute

Sheela Berchmans has been an ECS member since 2012 and member of the Organic and Biologic Division and India Section since 2019. Berchmans’ areas of expertise include microbial fuel cells, nanomaterials for sensor applications, bio-assisted synthesis of metal nanoparticles, and electrocatalysis. Read her past work, available now in the ECS Digital Library.

Follow the latest research on electrocatalysis at the 235th ECS Meeting taking place on May 26-30, 2019 in Dallas, TX.

Electrocatalysis assumes a special importance as the applied potential at the electrified interface provides a tunable ∆G to the rate component. ∆G consists of a chemical and a electrochemical component (e-∆G0/RT e-F∆/RT), where the electrochemical component provides a leverage to control the rate of reaction. For simple nonbonding reactions, the rate of the reaction can be expressed as a function of work function of the metal catalyst. However, when bonding reactions are concerned, the adsorption of the reactants at the electrode surface determines the rate of the reaction. For eg, we take into consideration, Hydrogen evolution reaction, (HER) a typical prototype of electrochemical reaction.

The following reaction steps determine the rate of the reaction. The first step involves the proton discharge on the electro catalyst (Volmer reaction) which desorbs either through an electrochemical desorption (Heyrovsky reaction) or chemical desorption from the electrode surface as H2 gas. (2nd and 3rd steps) This reaction is known to be highly exothermic in nature.

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Volunteer at the 235th ECS Meeting and receive 50% off your meeting registration, (1) ticket to the Student Mixer, and (1) free year of student membership! You get a cool volunteer shirt too!

As a student volunteer, you will work closely with the ECS staff and meet your fellow ECS members and meeting attendees.

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to network and engage with meeting attendees, symposium organizers, and ECS staff! Multilingual speakers are highly encouraged to apply!

Deadline for application submissions: Thursday, April 25
Candidates notified on or after: Thursday, May 9

SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

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Free the Science Week wraps up this coming Sunday, April 7, but Free the Science—as a movement—continues all year round, propelled in large part by the institutions and authors that take advantage of the benefits of ECS Plus.

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There is still time to register for the ECS Data Science Hack Week program that will take place in Dallas, TX from May 26-29 at the 235th ECS Meeting, as the application deadline has been extended to April 15!

Perhaps you have already heard about this Hack Week event or read about data science in the latest issue of Interface magazine, but if you haven’t yet applied to take part in this extended workshop, now is your last chance.

Led by an experienced team of instructors with a mission to train the electrochemical community on the modern tools necessary to enhance your ability to analyze data and accelerate research progress, this program is something every researcher should consider attending. (more…)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will host the first, pilot NSF Convergence Accelerator (C-Accel) activity, which aims to fund approximately 50 Phase 1 projects at up to $1 million each.

But that’s not all – in 2020, Phase 1 projects will be eligible to apply for Phase 2 C-Accel support, of up to $5 million.

Pilot goals:

According to NSF, the purpose of the pilot is to transform how NSF supports the most innovative science and engineering to accelerate use-inspired convergence research in areas of national importance by facilitating convergent team-building capacity around exploratory, potentially high-risk proposals. (more…)

Free the Science Week celebrates those working to eliminate barriers to access for researchers around the world.

Yesterday’s blog post discussed ECS’s Author Choice Open Access program, which enables many authors to publish open access at no cost to them.

But did you know that the Society also supports green open access?

ECS’s green open access policy allows you to freely and immediately share the articles you publish in ECS journals without using an open access article credit or paying an article processing charge.

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With Free the Science Week in full swing, readers have free, uninhibited access to the more than 151,000 articles and abstracts in the ECS Digital Library until Sunday, April 7.

But the Free the Science initiative isn’t just about making research free to access; it’s also about making research free to publish.

So one of the best ways you can celebrate Free the Science Week is by making plans to publish your next ECS article Author Choice Open Access.

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Not sure what to download during Free the Science Week?

Over 37% of the ECS journal content published since 2014 is open access—free to access all year round. During Free the Science Week, which runs until April 7, you have free access to the other 63% of this content (and much more) ordinarily found behind the paywall.

The lists below compile this year’s most-read articles typically found behind the paywall from the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, and ECS Transactions.

Download them while they’re free to access!

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ECS members Glenn Lee (center) and Akilah Miller (front right) discuss the effect of temperature on battery performance at the Explore Your Universe 2018 event at the UCLA campus.

When ECS President Yue Kuo and ECS Executive Director and CEO Christopher Jannuzzi found themselves in California for the International Battery Association 2019 (IBA 2019) Meeting in San Diego, they knew they had to make one more stop before their trip came to an end. They had heard of an ECS Student Chapter at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) known widely for their active membership, offering a hub for nearly 20 members to gather each week to present research, gather new ideas, and even start new collaborations among different research groups.

“We contacted Ryan Henry DeBlock, the UCLA chapter chair, to schedule the visit,” said Kuo.

“Many of the students participating in this chapter are doing research in batteries and come together to exchange what they’ve learned,” said Kuo of the visit.

Kuo also took the opportunity to inform the students of the many things ECS has to offer as well. (more…)

Register today!

Topic Close-up #14

Symposium I03: Ionic and Mixed Conducting Ceramics 12

Symposium focus: The aim of this symposium is to provide a forum to share both experimental and theoretical studies of ionic conductors and mixed conducting materials, in the areas including fuel cells, batteries, sensors, membranes, electrochemical reactors, and electrosynthesis.

The symposium will be sponsored by XTC New Energy Materials (Xiamen) LTD, and will feature the following invited speakers: (more…)