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.

Listen and download these episodes and others for free through the iTunes Store, SoundCloud, or our RSS Feed. You can also find us on Stitcher.

New research shows another step forward in the goal of developing energy storage systems robust enough to store such intermittent sources as wind and solar on a large-scale.

Their work explores the opportunities in solid oxide cells (SOCs), which the group believes to be one of the best prospects in energy storage due to their high efficiency and wide range of scales.

ECS member John Irvine and his team from the University of St. Andrews have set out to overcome traditional barriers in this technology, developing a new method of electrochemical switching to simplify the manufacturing of the electrodes needed to deliver high, long-lasting energy activity.

This from the University of St. Andrews:

The results demonstrate a new way to produce highly active and stable nanostructures – by growing electrode nanoarchitectures under operational conditions. This opens exciting new possibilities for activating or reinvigorating fuel cells during operation.

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Five ECS short courses will be offered at PRiME 2016 in Honolulu this October!

What are short courses? Taught by academic and industry experts in intimate learning settings, short courses offer students and professionals alike the opportunity to greatly expand their knowledge and technical expertise.

PRiME 2016 short courses will be held on Sunday, October 2, 2016 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Don’t miss the early-bird deadline of September 2, 2016! Register today!

Short Course #5: Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

Hubert A. Gasteiger and Thomas J. Schmidt, Instructors 

This short course develops the fundamental thermodynamics and electrocatalytic processes critical to polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs, including Direct Methanol and Alkaline Membrane FCs). In the first part, we will discuss the relevant half-cell reactions, their thermodynamic driving forces, and their mathematical foundations in electrocatalysis theory (e.g., Butler-Volmer equations). Subsequently, this theoretical framework will be applied to catalyst characterization and the evaluation of kinetic parameters like activation energies, exchange current densities, reaction orders, etc.

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Sponsored by MTI Corporation and the Jiang Family Foundation

2016 continues to be a banner year for the ECS Battery Division. Allow us to introduce the two inaugural winners of the Battery Division Postdoctoral Associate Research Award sponsored by MTI Corporation and the Jiang Family Foundation. The award was created earlier this year to encourage excellence among postdoctoral researchers in battery and fuel cell research.

<br

Dr. Yelena Gorlin
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Technische Universität München

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Dr. Liumin Suo
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ECS extends sincere appreciation to Dr. Xiao P. Jiang and the MTI Corporation for this partnership. A solid track record of philanthropy coupled with an empathetic understanding of the challenges associated with the role of the post-doctoral research associate makes this award possible.

Through its Honors and Awards Program, ECS has recognized professional and volunteer achievement within our multi-disciplinary sciences for decades. Learn more about various forms of ECS recognition and those who share the spotlight as past award winners.

Image: University of Maryland

Wood has been a key building block for much of history infrastructure. While we may have witnessed wood fade out in lieu of other materials in more recent times, it’s about to make a comeback in an unexpected way.

Past ECS member Liangbing Hu of the University of Maryland, College Park is developing a stronger, transparent wood that can be used in place of less environmentally friendly materials such as plastic.

But this development’s novelty really lies in the transparency factor. So many structures built today rely on the use of glass and steel. By replacing those building materials with the transparent wood, the world of design could be revolutionized while heating costs and fuel consumption rates are simultaneously reduced.

This from CNN:

Hu describes the process of creating clear wood in two steps: First, the lignin — an organic substance found in vascular plants — is chemically removed. This is the same step used in manufacturing pulp for paper. The lignin is responsible for the “yellow-ish” color of wood. The second step is to inject the channels, or veins of the wood by filling it with an epoxy — which can be thought of as strengthening agent, Hu says.

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The National Park Service, which oversees more than 400 sites across the country, celebrated its 100th birthday on Aug. 25, 2016. During the centennial anniversary, Popular Science caught up with Bill Nye to discuss how climate change is affecting these public lands and their inhabitants.

Children struggle to learn when they don’t have science labs and libraries. Learning becomes difficult in classrooms that are falling apart, or where children are expected to sit on the floor because they have neither desks nor chairs.

A lack of infrastructure is just one contributor to South Africa’s entrenched and ongoing educational inequality. There is another, less frequently discussed issue that is deepening this inequality: access to quality peer-reviewed information.

Such information should be available to all South Africans whether they are school children, university students, researchers or citizen scientists. This will encourage lifelong self-learning. It will spur continued research and innovation. Access to information can bolster education, training, empowerment and human development.

International Open Access Week offers a good opportunity to explore how South Africa can improve its citizens’ access to information.

Opening up access

It has been more than 21 years since apartheid ended, but a distinction remains between South Africa’s “rich” and “poor” universities. One of the reasons for this distinction is the richer institutions’ ability to invest in research resources. They can afford expensive subscriptions to databases which contain a wealth of research – ironically funded by taxpayers’ money.

The historically disadvantaged and predominantly black universities can’t afford such subscriptions. Their academics also can’t contribute to such resources, because authors are expected to pay a fee for the “privilege” of being published.

As university budgets are slashed, even wealthier institutions are beginning to struggle with subscription and publication fee costs.

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Just over 45 years ago today, 500,000 women marched down New York City’s Fifth Avenue to celebrate the anniversary of the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment. Since that day, Aug. 26 has been annually celebrated in the U.S. as Women’s Equality Day – a celebration of a major turning point in the women’s rights movement: the right to vote.

While women’s move toward equality has gained much momentum since the 1920s, there have been plenty of bumps in the road – especially for women in science, technology, engineering, and math.

History may not have always been kind to women, but they’ve always been there – building the early foundation of modern science and breaking gender barriers in innovation and discovery.

Take Nettie Stevens (born 1861), the foremost researcher in sex determination, whose work was initially rejected because of her sex. Or Mary Engle Pennington (born 1872), an American chemist at the turn of the 20th century, pioneering research that allows us to process, store, and ship food safely. Barbara McClintock (born 1902) was deemed crazy when she suggested that genes jump from chromosome to chromosome. Of course, she was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of genetic transportation.

Through the years, women in STEM have worked tirelessly to break the hardest glass ceilings and close the gender gap.

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