Electrochemistry News Items & Facts - March 2022

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 interact 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 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 March 2022:

1. Induction cooktops work best with iron-based pots & pans, not aluminum or copper, because iron has much higher electrical resistance to most efficiently turn the induced current into heat to cook food.
   

2. In 1966, General Motors developed their first hydrogen fuel cell concept vehicle called the Electrovan. It weighed 3.2 tons and could go up to 70 miles per hour.
   

3. In 2017, electronics systems powered by semiconductor-based computer chips comprised 40% of the production cost of a new car. This figure increased from 18% in 2000, 20% in 2007, and is projected to reach 45% in 2030.
   

4. A recent study published in Nature concludes that present-day techniques for pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical metals recovery from Li-ion battery recycling don't significantly reduce life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) when compared to the GHGs generated by freshly-mined metals.
   

5. Related to the entry above, an alternative recycling method called "Direct Cathode Recovery" is poised to be a more economically and environmentally promising Li-ion battery recycling method, but to work as claimed this method requires more stringent sorting of the batteries before processing when compared to pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical recycling methods.