Have you ever picked up your cell, looked at the battery life, and go, “But I just charged this thing. What gives?” It’s not just you. According to The Washington Post, the smartphones battery life is getting worse. And, chances are, you’re new and upgraded 2018 smartphone’s battery life is actually worse than older models.

Phone makers have claimed to have tackled this battle by including more-efficient processors, low-power modes, and artificial intelligence to manage app drain, but it’s no secret to the battery industry that the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones have hit a plateau.

So, what gives? According to Nadim Maluf, CEO of a firm that optimizes batteries called Qnovos, batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year. (more…)

According to The Verge, MIT is investing $1 billion into an AI college due to an ongoing drought of AI developers and researchers. The hope is that the new college, The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, will act as both a global center for computing research and education, and an intellectual foundry for powerful new AI tools, according to MIT President L. Rafael Reif.

The new college will train students from a broad range of disciplines and fields, like biology, chemistry, physics, politics, history, and linguistics. MIT’s goal with this is two. First, to examine ethical considerations relevant to computing and AI by including diverse perspectives; second, to teach a wide scope of students what they believe is “the bilinguals of the future.” (more…)

George E. Blomgren is the author of “The Development and Future of Lithium Ion Batteries,” the most-downloaded Journal of The Electrochemical Society paper since April 2017. To put this in perspective, Blomgren’s article has had 26,817 downloads this year. That is over 4.4 times the average amount received by the next nine most-downloaded JES papers for this year. Since its publication in December 2016, Blomgren’s paper has been downloaded a total of 53,575 times.

We decided to revisit the man with the incredible stats, and ask, how did you do it?

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Deadline for Submitting Abstracts
December 28, 2018
Submit today!

Topic Close-up #4

Symposium A06: Battery Safety and Failure Modes

Symposium Focus: Energy storage needs for advanced industrial and consumer electronics devices demand increasingly higher lithium-ion battery (LIB) specific energy and power densities. Increased LIB functionality via higher specific energy, extremely fast charging, and sophisticated management systems increases the need for a better understanding of LIB safety. (more…)

Deadline for Submitting Abstracts
December 28, 2018
Submit today!

Topic Close-up #2

Symposium A04: Battery Student Slam 3

Symposium Focus: This special symposium is dedicated to students working on energy storage and energy conversion. In the student slam, we offer an opportunity for students to present flash oral presentations of their work in a 10-minute time slot. All students enrolled at any valid degree-granting institution may submit an abstract describing the presentation. Of particular interest are new materials and designs, performance studies, and modeling of all types of batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells, including aqueous, non-aqueous, polymer electrolytes, solid electrolytes, and flow systems. We strongly encourage students to submit their papers to this symposium instead of other symposia sponsored by the Battery Division at this meeting. (more…)

Deadline for Submitting Abstracts
December 28, 2018
Submit today!

Topic Close-up #3

Symposium I05: Heterogeneous Functional Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage 2

Symposium focus: This symposium will focus on the science that controls emergent properties in heterogeneous functional materials as a foundation for the design of functional material devices with performance not bounded by constituent properties.

Providing a unique venue for both contributed and invited speakers to present the latest advances in novel modeling approaches, advanced 3-D imaging and characterization techniques, novel material synthesis and manufacturing methods to create highly ordered material structure, and applications of heterogeneous functional materials in devices for energy conversion and storage.

This symposium especially encourages and welcomes contributed presentations. (more…)

2018 awards winners Han (left) and Lacey (right) with Caroline Cloutier (center) representing Mercedes Benz R&D.

Steven Lacey is one of the winners of the 2018 Battery Division Student Research Award sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Research & Development (check out the other winner, Fudong Han).

Lacey’s passion for electrochemistry and engineering began at a young age when he realized the need for a more fuel-efficient means of transportation while restoring classic cars with his father.

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Earlier this year, the ECS Canada Section recognized a winner of its Electrochemical Award for the first time in eight years. Please congratulate Ashok Vijh.

Ashok Vijh is Maître-de-Recherche at the Institut de recherche d’Hydro-Québec and, concurrently, Invited Professor at the National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS) of Université du Québec.

Vijh is an electrochemist of international stature who has published over 380 refereed papers and seven books on various areas of interfacial electrochemistry. His original and extensive research contributions have advanced the following areas: the conversion and storage of energy (electrocatalysis, fuel cells, batteries, photoelectrochemical cells, and hydrogen economy), corrosion, and oxidation of metals.

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In honor of International Open Access Week, from October 22-18, The Scholarly Kitchen wrote a two-part series focusing on both publishers and researchers from disadvantaged global research landscapes. The following publishers and researchers share their thoughts, concerns, successes, and setbacks on their journey to complete access for all. (more…)

The Electrochemical Society aims to advance theory and practice at the forefront of electrochemical and solid state science and technology, and allied subjects. To better serve the needs of researchers, scientists, and engineers across the field, we’d like to gather your thoughts on open access, membership, and the ECS quarterly magazine, Interface. Your feedback will inform the future direction of ECS programs.

Let us know your thoughts

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