Electrochemistry News Items & Facts - February 2024

Every day, we all use battery powered devices at home, drive vehicles, eat packaged foods, and drink clean water. These are a few examples of the countless aspects of our modern lifestyles which are reliant on electrochemistry - broadly defined as the study of how electricity interacts with materials.

As an electrochemistry instrumentation company, Admiral Instruments proudly serves our customers who are among the millions of scientists, engineers, & technicians around the world using potentiostats and battery cyclers to uncover new ways electrochemistry may benefit us all.

To celebrate how electrochemistry has shaped the past, touches our present-day lives, and influences the future, every month Admiral Instruments posts five notable news articles, publications, & trivia somehow related to electrochemistry. Click on each entry to read more from the source article!

Electrochemistry News Items & Facts for February 2024:

1. The two main scenarios that can result in the exploding of an electrolytic capacitor are 1) reversing the polarity and 2) excess voltage as little as 1-1.5V applied.

2. Approximately 45% to 54% of semiconductor-grade neon, critical for lasers used in the production of Integrated Circuits (IC), comes from Ukraine. Global neon consumption for use in IC production was 540 metric tons in 2021.

3. The permanent magnets used in electric vehicle motors are most often based on a neodymium-iron-boron formulation, which delivers the highest magnetic field strength and resistance to demagnetization compared to alternative materials.

4. As of 2022, over 50% of the world's lithium comes from high-altitude lakes and salt flats in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. This region is known as the "Lithium Triangle" where it is mined in brine pools.

5. Applying 1.5V to liquid metal Galinstan (an alloy of gallium, indium and tin) causes it to form a current-carrying wire when flowing out of a syringe, and the resulting wire changes shape via magnetic field application.