The ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology is now featuring a focus issue on Thermoelectric Materials & Devices: Phonon Engineering, Advanced Materials and Thermal Transport. The issue reflects the symposia from the 228th ECS Meeting on Thermoelectric and Thermal Interface Materials in Phoenix, AZ.

In the issue’s preface, the authors tell us that advances in this field, “. . . can inspire developments in thermoelectrics that may underpin the next major advance in energy harvesting and cooling and ultimately improve the quality of our devices, and help drive energy efficiency and a greener society.”

The focus issue discusses advances, challenges, and applications in thermoelectrics and its various sub-fields such as phonon transport physics, materials science, electronics, condensed matter physics, engineering, the chemistry of materials, and processing technology.

The Society would like to thank the authors, reviewers, and editors who contributed to this focus issue. Special thank you to Colm O’Dwyer from University College Cork, Renkun Chen from the University of California, San Diego, Jr-Hau He from King Abdulla University of Science and Technology, Jaeho Lee from the University of California Irvine, and Kafil M. Razeeb from University College Cork.

Read the focus issue in the ECS Digital Library.

This focus issue of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society is devoted to the mathematical modeling of electrochemical systems across multiple scales. Future advances in electrochemical systems will be greatly influenced by the need to design and control materials and processes using advanced simulation tools. Length scales in electrochemical applications can range from electronic to atomic to molecular to nanoscale to microscale to macroscale.

This issue, as well as regular symposia on multiscale modeling for electrochemical systems at ECS meetings, was majorly inspired by the work of Professor John Newman from the University of California-Berkeley. He dedicated his career to this topic, and he trained and influenced countless researchers on this topic over the years.

The deadline for submissions is April 2, 2017. Submit today!

All papers accepted for this focus issue will be published as open access at no cost to authors; the article processing charge (APC) will be waived.

(more…)

In June 2016, the International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB) in Chicago successfully celebrated 25 years of the commercialization of lithium-ion batteries. According to Doron Aurbach, technical editor of the Batteries and Energy Storage topical interest area of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, research efforts in the Li-battery community continues to provide ground-breaking technological success in electromobility and grid storage applications. He hopes this research will continue to revolutionize mobile energy supply for future advances in ground transportation.

ECS has published 66 papers for a new IMLB focus issue in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. All papers are open access at no charge to the authors and no charge to download thanks to ECS’s Free the Science initiative!

(READ: Focus Issue of Selected Papers from IMLB 2016 with Invited Papers Celebrating 25 Years of Lithium Ion Batteries)

The focus issue provides important information on the forefront of advanced battery research that appropriately reflects the findings from the symposium.

(more…)

Pioneering nanocarbons researcher Harry Kroto passed away on April 30, 2016 at the age of 76. A giant among giants, Kroto made an immense impact on ECS and its scientific discipline as well as the world at large. Because of this, an upcoming focus issue of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology honors the memory of Kroto, who is best known for his role in discovering that pure carbon can exist in the form of a hollow soccer ball-shaped molecule named the “buckminsterfullerene” (“buckyball” for short).

“Harry Kroto’s passing is a great loss to science and society as a whole,” says Bruce Weisman, guest editor of the focus issue. “He was an exceptional researcher whose 1985 work with Rick Smalley and Bob Curl launched the field of nanocarbons research and nanotechnology.”

Subsequent studies of carbon nanostructures have uncovered scientific phenomena and developed novel materials that promise myriad applications ranging from energy harvesting and drug delivery to high performance composites. Research in this field continues to fill the pages of scholarly journals, making possible innovations that were not even conceived before the seminal work.

(more…)

An article by Shelley D. Minteer and Henry White as part of the JES Focus Issue Honoring Allen J. Bard.

The Electrochemical Society founded the Allen J. Bard Award in 2013 to honor Prof. Allen J. Bard’s extensive contributions in the field of electrochemistry, and the first award was given in May 2015 at the ECS meeting in Chicago. In recognition of the establishment of this endowed award, we are delighted to dedicate this special issue of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society to Professor Bard.

Allen was born in New York City in 1933 and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry at City College of New York 1955. He continued his studies at Harvard University under the supervision of James J. Lingane, a renowned electroanalytical chemist, and received a Master’s degree in 1956 and a PhD in 1958. He then accepted an instructor position at the University of Texas and quickly moved up the ranks to Professor in 1967.

In the 58 years since arriving in Austin, Allen has mentored over 75 PhD students and 150 post-doctoral fellows. Their combined contributions to the field of electrochemistry are legendary, including electroanalytical techniques for evaluating electrode reaction mechanisms, simultaneous electrochemistry electron spin resonance (SEESR) techniques, nonaqueous solvents for investigating energetic species, electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL), polymer modified electrodes, semiconductor photoelectrochemistry, photocatalysis, scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), and single-particle collision electrochemistry.

(more…)

Thomas Fuller, JES Technical Editor, and guest editors
Bryan Pivovar, Kathy Ayers, Marcelo Carmo, Jim O’Brien, and
Xiaoyu Zhang, invite you to submit to the:

JES Focus Issue:

Electrolysis for Increased Renewable Energy Penetration

Submission Deadline | April 7, 2016

This special issue of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society focuses on electrolysis. Interest in this area has increased significantly with focus on several different technological approaches, each with their own unique challenges. Examples include, cost challenges for PEM water electrolysis, and thermal and durability challenges for high-temperature, solid-oxide electrolysis.

Topics of interest to this special issue of JES include, but are not limited to:

• Novel approaches for electrocatalysts including nanostructures with enhanced activities, durability, and cost reduction
• Fundamental studies of the chemical processes on solid surfaces and triple-phase-boundaries
• Polymers, ion conducting ceramics, membranes, and electrodes for electrolysis applications
• New approaches on the design and characterization of membrane/separator components
• New architectures for porous transport medias and bipolar plates

Read more topics of interest.

Submission Deadline | April 7, 2016

We invite original contributions from both fundamental and applied work that falls in the technical areas of interest of JES readership.

Please submit manuscripts at http://ecsjournals.msubmit.net.

Papers accepted into this focus issue are published online within 10 days of acceptance. The issue is created online an article at a time with the final article published in September 2016.