EJ Taylor, ECS Treasurer and Chief Technical Officer at Faraday Technology, recently ran across this article from The Economist discussing an accidental discovery that could yield big results. Materials scientists Wang Changan of Tsinghua University and Li Ju of MIT may have unintentionally found the answer to developing a battery that can last up to four times longer than the current generation. Initially, the scientists were simply researching nanoparticles made of aluminum. While these tiny particles are good conductors of…
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Yue Kuo’s work in solid state science has yielded many innovations and has made a tremendous mark on the scientific community. Since his arrival at ECS in 1995, Kuo was named an ECS Fellow, was recently named Vice President of the Society, previously served as an associate editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, and is currently one of the technical editors of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology. Additionally, Kuo received the ECS Gordon E….
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ECS staff recently analyzed membership data to determine which organizations had the largest presence within the society. Here is what we discovered:   ∗The total amount of members can be found next to each organization’s name. The names in green with an asterisk indicate organizations that have an institutional membership. ECS is grateful for the continued support from each of these important partners, particularly those that have committed to an institutional membership. If your organization might be interested in an institutional membership, please…
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This is the latest Websites of Note, a regular feature in the ECS magazine Interface researched by Zoltan Nagy, a semi-retired electrochemist. Fuel Cells — Green Power Although fuel cells have been around since 1839, it took 120 years until NASA demonstrated some of their potential applications in providing power during space flight. As a result of these successes, in the 1960s, industry began to recognize the commercial potential of fuel cells, but encountered technical barriers and high investment costs…
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As a membership and development intern, my responsibilities include the organizing and electronic conversion of paper membership documents as ECS makes the transition from file cabinets to e-file folders. While going through the archive of members my heart skipped a beat, so to speak, as I read the profile of Esther S. Takeuchi. There are countless articles and information about Dr. Takeuchi, so I won’t press you with too many of her accolades. While being a member ECS and under…
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Potatoes are great in many forms: mashed, baked, roasted, electrochemical energy source… Most people have seen or experienced the potato battery experiment in a chemistry class, but BatteryBox is taking this exercise to a whole new level. As you know, one or two potatoes produce enough energy to power a small digital clock. But how much energy would 110 pound of potatoes produce? Enough to charge a smartphone? For this experiment, the team at BatteryBox cut up and boiled the…
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Energy is everywhere. As long as there has been a universe, there has been energy. In fact, some researchers believe that Earth’s very first life forms got a little electrical energy boost from chemical seafloor gardens. Of course this was only a theory, so scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have grown their on chemical gardens in-house. The have proven strong enough to power a lightbulb, suggesting that the first cell-like organisms may indeed have used seafloor, chimney-shaped structures to…
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Actress, comedian, and author Amy Poehler has put a lot of effort into empowering young girls in science for some time now. Her Smart Girls project took off in 2008, which serves as a place where future women can foster their curiosity and pursue opportunities in STEM. Now Poehler and her Smart Girls group are adding to the women in STEM conversation with their new series, “Experimenting with Megan Amram.” Amram is a Harvard graduate, author, and comedian. The new…
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There are more than 250 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads. From these vehicles, roughly 135 billion gallons of gasoline are consumed each year in the United States. In fact, 28 percent of energy used in the country is in the transportation sector. While many may think that the majority of this consumption would come from planes or trains, personal cars and trucks actually consume 60 percent of all energy used here. Unfortunately, most of that energy is lost…
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