Interest in electric and hybrid vehicles continues to grow across the globe. The world economy saw EV sales go from around 315,000 in 2014 to 536,000 in 2015, and trends so far for 2016 show that the number of vehicles sold this year is on track to far exceed numbers we’ve seen in previous years.

Moving EVs forward

But in order to make these cars, there needs to be an energy storage source that is not only sustainable, but cheap to produce, with high efficiency, and can be easily mass produced. One of the leading contenders in that race has become fuel cell technology.

In recent years, new materials and better heat management processes have advanced fuel cells. Now, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s NERSC center (including ECS Fellow Radoslav Adzic and ECS member Kotaro Sasaki) are putting their chips on polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) to be at the forefront of fuel cell technology due recent finds. In a new study, the group showed that PEFCs could be made to run more efficiently and produced more cost-effectively by reducing the amount of a single key ingredient: platinum.

Laboratory curiosity

While fuel cells date back to 1839, they spent a majority of their existence as laboratory curiosities. It wasn’t until the 1950s when fuel cells finally made their way to the main stage, eventually going on to power the Gemini and Apollo space flights in the 1960s.

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Scientists can now directly probe hard-to-see layers of chemistry due to the development of an X-ray toolkit out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The research team behind the initiative believes that their development could provide insight about battery performance and corrosion. Additionally, it could give insight into a variety of chemical reactions, including biological and environmental processes.

The from LBNL:

In a first-of-its-kind experiment at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, an X-ray source known as a synchrotron, researchers demonstrated this new, direct way to study the inner workings of an activity center in chemistry known as an “electrochemical double layer” that forms where liquids meets solids—where battery fluid (the electrolyte) meets an electrode, for example (batteries have two electrodes: an anode and a cathode).

Read the full article.

In a battery, changes in electrical potential can be seen in the electrochemical double layer.

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An interdisciplinary team made up of researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory recently developed a new catalyst that carries out a solar-powered reaction 100 times faster than ever before.

Additionally, the catalyst’s performance improves as time goes on and it can stand up to intense, acidic conditions. In creating the catalyst, the researchers used less iridium than would typically be used, potentially lowering the cost to produce hydrogen or carbon-based fuels that could power a range of renewable, sustainable alternatives.

This from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory:

The discovery of the catalyst – a very thin film of iridium oxide layered on top of strontium iridium oxide – was the result of an extensive search by three groups of experts for a more efficient way to accelerate the oxygen evolution reaction, or OER, which is half of a two-step process for splitting water with sunlight.

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Deadline: October 1, 2016

The Carl Wagner Memorial Award was established in 1980 to recognize mid-career achievement, excellence in research areas of interest of the Society, and significant contributions in the teaching or guidance of students or colleagues in education, industry, or government.

The award consists of a silver medal and a corresponding wall plaque, complimentary meeting registration for award recipient and companion, a dinner held in recipient’s honor during the designated meeting, and Society Life Membership. The next Wagner Award will be recognized at the 232nd ECS biannual meeting in National Harbor, MD in October 2017 where the recipient will deliver a general address on a subject related to the contributions for which the award is being presented.

View the full list of past recipients, expanded details of the award and APPLY NOW!

ECS understands the value of recognition. The Carl Wagner Memorial Award is part of ECS Honors & Awards Program, one that has recognized professional and volunteer achievement within our multi-disciplinary sciences for decades.

Over the past few years, researchers have been exploring graphene’s amazing properties and vast potential applications. Now, a team from Iowa State University is looking to take those properties enabled by graphene and applied them to sensors and other technologies.

Many scientists have had a hard time moving graphene from the lab to the marketplace, but the research team from Iowa State University saw potential in using inkjet printers to create multi-layer graphene circuits and electrodes for the production of flexible, wearable electronics.

“Could we make graphene at scales large enough for glucose sensors?” ECS member and Iowa State University postdoctoral researcher, Suprem Das, wanted to know.

(MORE: Read more of Das’ work in the ECS Digital Library.)

The problem with the printing process is that the graphene would then have to be treated to improve its electrical conductivity, which could degrade the flexibility. Instead of using high temperatures and chemical to do this treatment, Das and other members of the team opted to use lasers.

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Carbon dioxide emissions account for 80 percent of all greenhouse gases pumped into the environment, totaling in at a staggering 40 tons of CO₂ currently emitted from burning fossil fuels. In a response to the high levels of CO₂, which have been linked to the accelerating rates in climate change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called for a 30 percent decrease in emissions of the power sector. Former ECS member Susan Rempe is looking to help the sector achieve that goal through the development of the CO₂ Memzyme.

Researchers claim the Memzyme is the only cost-effective way to capture and process CO₂. Further, the team states that the Memzyme — which is a membrane with an active layer holding an enzyme — has prefect selectivity.

The development could help capture CO₂ from coal-fired power plants and is 10 times thinner than a soap bubble.

With hydrogen power stations in California, a new Japanese consumer car and portable hydrogen fuel cells for electronics, hydrogen as a zero emission fuel source is now finally becoming a reality for the average consumer. When combined with oxygen in the presence of a catalyst, hydrogen releases energy and bonds with the oxygen to form water.

The two main difficulties preventing us from having hydrogen power everything we have are storage and production. At the moment, hydrogen production is energy-intensive and expensive. Normally, industrial production of hydrogen requires high temperatures, large facilities and an enormous amount of energy. In fact, it usually comes from fossil fuels like natural gas – and therefore isn’t actually a zero-emission fuel source. Making the process cheaper, efficient and sustainable would go a long way toward making hydrogen a more commonly used fuel.

An excellent – and abundant – source of hydrogen is water. But chemically, that requires reversing the reaction in which hydrogen releases energy when combining with other chemicals. That means we have to put energy into a compound, to get the hydrogen out. Maximizing the efficiency of this process would be significant progress toward a clean-energy future.

One method involves mixing water with a helpful chemical, a catalyst, to reduce the amount of energy needed to break the connections between hydrogen and oxygen atoms. There are several promising catalysts for hydrogen generation, including molybdenum sulfide, graphene and cadmium sulfate. My research focuses on modifying the molecular properties of molybdenum sulfide to make the reaction even more effective and more efficient.

Making hydrogen

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it’s rarely available as pure hydrogen. Rather, it combines with other elements to form a great many chemicals and compounds, such as organic solvents like methanol, and proteins in the human body. Its pure form, H₂, can used as a transportable and efficient fuel.

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Currently, electric vehicles depend on a complex interplay of batteries and supercapacitors to get you where you’re going. But a recently published paper, co-authored by ECS Fellow Hector Abruna, details the development of a new material that can take away some of the complexity of EVs.

“Our material combines the best of both worlds — the ability to store large amounts of electrical energy or charge, like a battery, and the ability to charge and discharge rapidly, like a supercapacitor,” says William Dichtel, lead author of the study.

This from Northwestern University:

[The research team] combined a COF — a strong, stiff polymer with an abundance of tiny pores suitable for storing energy — with a very conductive material to create the first modified redox-active COF that closes the gap with other older porous carbon-based electrodes.

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Deadline: October 1, 2016

The Olin Palladium Award was established in 1950 to recognize outstanding contributions to the fundamental understanding of all types of electrochemical and corrosion phenomena and processes. Qualified candidates will be distinguished for contributions in those fields.

The award consists of a palladium medal and a corresponding wall plaque, a $7,500 prize, complimentary meeting registration for award recipient and companion, a dinner held in recipient’s honor during the designated meeting, and Society Life Membership. The next Olin Palladium Award will be recognized at the 232nd ECS biannual meeting in National Harbor, MD in October 2017 where the recipient will deliver a general address on a subject related to the contributions for which the award is being presented.

View the full list of past recipients, expanded details of the award and APPLY NOW!

ECS understands the value of recognition. The Olin Palladium Award is part of ECS Honors & Awards Program, one that has recognized professional and volunteer achievement within our multi-disciplinary sciences for decades.

We’re delving into our archives as part of our continuing Masters Series podcasts. In 1995, ECS and the Chemical Heritage Foundation worked to compile various oral histories of some of the biggest names in electrochemical and solid state science.

One of those key figures was Frank Biondi. During his extensive career at Bell Labs, Biondi conducted pioneering research on such developments as transistors, semiconductors for satellites, and fuel cells. His work also lent itself to the Manhattan Project, where Biondi designed the diffusion barrier for the atomic bomb.

Biondi’s association with ECS developed in an effort to assure Bell Labs researchers’ an outlet to publish and present their work. Because of this, Biondi became the Society’s benefactors in the inclusion of solid state science and technology.

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