Researchers have created a small, thin, biodegradable sensor that could monitor the temperature of food in transit.

Microsensors are already used in many different applications today, such as the detection of poisonous gases. They are also part of miniaturized transmitter/receiver systems, such as the ubiquitous RFID chips.

As the sensors often contain precious metals that are harmful to both the environment and human health, however, they are not suitable for medical applications involving direct contact with the human body or for inclusion in food products. There is therefore a high level of interest, both in research and industry, in developing microsensors made from non-toxic materials that are also biodegradable.

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This Sunday at 2:00 pm ET is ECS OpenCon. We are webcasting it live from the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, MD.

Go to the ECS YouTube channel on Sunday to watch.

e are bringing together some of the top advocates in open access and open science to explore what next generation research will look like.

ECS OpenCon is a satellite event of the main OpenCon, an international event hosted by the Right to Research Coalition, a student sponsored organization of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

ECS is the first scholarly society to host a satellite event.

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Submit your manuscripts to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society Focus Issue on Ubiquitous Sensors and Systems for IoT by December 26, 2017.

Ubiquitous sensors are becoming an integral part of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and progress in this domain can be seen each month. The promise is that everyone and everything will be connected via wireless data collection, and services like healthcare will be brought to everyone, everywhere, anytime, for virtually any need.

These devices sense the environment and provide applications in home automation, home safety and comfort, and personal health. At a macro level, they provide data for smart cities, smart agriculture, water conservation, energy efficiency industry 4.0, and Society 5.0. Other applications include supply chain management, transportation, and logistics.

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Minhua Shao is an associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he leads a research group pursuing work in advanced material and electrochemical energy technologies. Shao’s current work focuses on electrocatalysis, fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, lithium-air batteries, CO₂ reduction, and water splitting. Shao was recently named an associate editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society in the area of fuel cells, electrolyzers, and energy conversion.

The Electrochemical Society: What do you hope to accomplish in your new role as associate editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society?

Minhua Shao: As an associate editor, I hope to accelerate the manuscript handling process by identifying suitable reviewers and making fair decisions. I also hope to promote the journal at conferences and among peers, attracting high-quality manuscripts.

ECS: How has scholarly publishing evolved throughout your career?

MS: Scholarly publishing has changed significantly in the past two decades. Now researchers have many more choices on which journals to publish their results. The adoption of the so-called impact factor in assessing the quality of journals/papers has misled the scientific community. More seriously, there is a trend that scholarly publishing is more of a business than a platform for sharing research results.

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Over the summer, librarians and academic leaders in Germany came together to lead a push in taking down the paywalls that block access to so many scientific research articles. The initiative, named Projekt DEAL, represents a bold push toward open access that could change the landscape of academic publishing.

The latest developments in Projekt DEAL pick up on a battle now over two years in the making, where libraries and universities in Germany have united in pushing large publishers to adopt a new business model. The institutions are looking to forego the typical subscription-based academic publishing business model in lieu of paying an annual lump sum that covers publications costs of all papers whose first authors are associated with German institutions.

The concept behind Projekt DEAL is relatively straight forward: multiply the number of papers with first authors associated with German institutions by a reasonable fee per paper. The institutions would pay that amount and those papers would then be published open access, available to everyone around the world, in exchange for free access to all of the publisher’s online content for the German institutions. This would not only mark a huge step in the open access movement, but would alleviate some of the financial burden facing libraries paying for high-cost journal subscriptions.

But this push isn’t the first of its kind. According to reports from Science, institutions from the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, and United Kingdom have all worked for similar agreements. The results, however, have been less than the libraries and universities had hoped for.

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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:

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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

Particularly in confined spaces—thin gaps between machine parts, the contact area between hardware and metal plate, behind seals and under gaskets, seams where two surfaces meet—close observation of such electrochemical dissolution had been an enormous challenge. But, not any more.

Using a device called the Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA), Israelachvili and colleagues were able to get a real-time look at the process of corrosion on confined surfaces.

“With the SFA, we can accurately determine the thickness of our metal film of interest and follow the development over time as corrosion proceeds,” says project scientist Kai Kristiansen.

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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 of thin, uniform layers of semiconductors just a few atoms thick which could expand capabilities for devices like solar cells and cell phones.

Stacking thin layers of materials offers a range of possibilities for making electronic devices with unique properties. But manufacturing them is a delicate process, with little room for error, researchers say.

“The scale of the problem we’re looking at is, imagine trying to lay down a flat sheet of plastic wrap the size of Chicago without getting any air bubbles in it,” says Jiwoong Park, a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago and at the Institute for Molecular Engineering and the James Franck Institute. “When the material itself is just atoms thick, every little stray atom is a problem.”

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