Happy New Year!

Dear All,

I met with Qinggang last sunday and also his wife. His wife is very beautiful! In professor Zi-feng Ma's group, there are about 11 people gotten married in the year of 2008 and thus, he held a quite large celebration party for this. I was quite lucky to be able to attend this event!

By the way, have a happy new year!

All the best,
Wen Wen

Shanghai Light Source

I would like to try sky-diving sometime! Seems exciting!

Please also see one of my picture taken in front of SSRF.

Sky Diving

Apart from squeaking around in the lab, I found some time jump out of a plane at about 8000 feet altitude. Here is a short video of my sky diving experience. Dear fellow graduate students, here is a possible way to toss our boss!

Cutting out Carbon by meeting virtually VEF - Dec 10&11

Virtual Energy Forum

http://www.virtualenergyforum.com/
December 10th and 11th, 2008.

Featured Speakers (multiple others):
Joseph T. Kelliher, Chairman
US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Nick d'Arbeloff, Executive Director
New England Clean Energy Council

Kevin W. Billings, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics
U.S. Air Force

Douglas Kaempf, Program Manager
Industrial Technologies Program US Department of Energy

Julia Hamm, Executive Director
Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA)

Sarah Hetznecker, Project Development Director
Conergy Projects Group

Powering Sensing Systems with Tree Power!

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/10/13/scientists_tap_into_tree_power/

Image from:

Love CJ, Zhang S, Mershin A (2008) Source of Sustained Voltage Difference between the Xylem of a Potted Ficus benjamina Tree and Its Soil. PLoS ONE 3(8): e2963. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002963

History of Electrochemistry

Check out the link. This is an article published in the latest volume of the Interface. It gives a good description of the evolution of electrochemistry and some world famous electrochemists. It pays tribute to some of the modern day electrochemists including Brian Conway. However, I was quite disappointing that it did not mention anything about Srini. Some day when we are driving around in a fuel cell car, I hope people look back at his contributions and thank him for it.

http://www.electrochem.org/dl/interface/fal/fal08/fal08_p31-39.pdf

New Protein Based Disk Recording

Folks check out the new paper by Professor Renugopalakrishnan on some novel protein based disk recording concept. This has been recently published as an article in the MRS bulletin.
"Protein based Disk Recording at Areal Densities beyond 10 Terabits/square inch.
S. Khizroev, R. Ikkawi, N. Amos, R. Chomko, V. Renugopalakrishnan, and D. Litvinov, MRS Bulletin, Volume 33, September 2008. Copy of this article will be placed in our newly created secure ftp server.

Bio-Solar Initiative Flying High

Folks our Bio-Solar initiative is now flying high with Professor Renugopalakrishnan's efforts. Several new proposals in this area have been initiated. In addition there are high impact papers with him as co-author containing Northeastern University affiliation. We look forward to more of such scholarly output and germination of new ideas through our center (NUCRET). The title of the latest papers is:
(1)"Controlled electron injection and transport at materials interface in dye sensitized solar cells," Materials Science and Engineering R (2008) In Press. [Impact factor 14+]

In honor of our new President-elect Barack Obama, I've decided to post a photograph of his lovely home state Hawaii at sunrise! Enjoy.

BNL NSLS X7B Beamtime - Oct/Nov 2008

I will post this picture as an ode to Wen. Our former labmate who has completed his Postdoctoral position at Brookhaven National Laboratory(BNL.gov) wasn't there this time for our experimenting at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) @ beamline X7B (XRD). We will miss our host as he has gone back to his native land to work with the Shanghai Synchrotron that is being completed over in China.

(Pictured from left to right - Brian Hult, Chris Allen, Dr. Wen Wen, and Dr. Jonathan Hanson [BNL Chemistry Staff and NSLS X7B Host])

Our research group is currently testing newly synthesized cathode materials for use in Lithium Ion Battery (LIB) applications. Pictured to the left is our pair of Arbin Battery Cyclers as they are setup on our research excursion to the NSLS.

To the left you will see how we position our in-situ LIB cells such that we can collect x-ray diffraction data from the cells at different states of charge (SOC). The incident x-ray beam is coming from the left to right in this picture, the beam comes out of a guide (tube) below the red LED towards the upper center of the picture.

To the left you will see the circular black body, which is the XRD detector for the beamline. The incident beam will hit the sample and diffract the x-rays at discrete angles which correlate to the planes within the crystal lattices of the sample and will be absorbed by the element in detector which will later be scanned (similar to a traditional photographic plate) and then converted to a typical abs. vs. 2 theta angle XRD spectra by integrating the image.

Stay TUNED for more!

If you are interesting in knowing more, please leave us a post with your email address!

Cheers,
Brian

Hot like lava

Ever wonder what it's like to walk around an active lava flow? Its hot!

An American Election

It is the 5th of November and we are all waking to a new reality. For some of us who are new citizen's this was an amazing awakening almost as if suddenly a new door had opened with hope for the future. A course correction which till yesterday was clouded in fear and ciniscism. Most of us were in doubt of our own ability to transcent color for reason and hope. Folks what a ride this has been. I have never been so involved in politics and as of now feel rewarded. I am not alone, spontaneous show of joy in several major cities including my favorite place, Time Sq., NY had never been seen here. This is a completely game changing event. I hope the new leadership which will come in is able to meet the expectations of all. I wish us well and hope we can keep our smiles for a few days more.

Fun after ECS meeting

After a week of intense science we took in the view of Honolulu from high atop the Diamondhead Crater!

lab video

Hi check out this new vidoe I created, this is the first of its kind. Go to animoto.com and check out this cool feature. Dont forget to post the Hawaii pictures

Hi, I just wanted to put in some of the pictures from our trip to Israel. Was a great experience. Meeting with Professor Peled's group and exchanges with the team on EnStorage lead by Arnon was a pleasure. We need a far greater exchange of pure science in order to come up with an ultimate solution (this is all I can say in this open blog). Best restaurant in Tel Aviv according to me was Tandoor, this is opposite to the Cinema Hotel. The restaurant serves North Indian fare with flare and style. We ate a lot and could not eat the following day till noon time. Renting a car was a good decision. Driving in Israel is very easy, however remember to bring a detailed map. We had a gps but this was not useful in several places, especially near Jerusalem. Stayed in the very historic King David Hotel, actually both of them. The new one is called the King David Citadel Hotel and the old one bears the tradition king David Hotel name. I was surprised at how small the old historic King David Hotel was. This hotel must have the maximum number of VVIP's in its list of patrons. Almost all US Presidents dating back to Eisenhower have stayed here. Jerusalem is sublime and well worth the time and money. For a Pagan it is also most interesting place. I spent a lot of time in the Jewish section especially the wailing wall. Also the trip along the via dela Rosa is a must ending in the Church of the Holy Sepulcur.
Dead sea is an amazing place, just 45 minutes from Jerusalem. The landscape change is so amazing that you feel that you are in a different planet. Workshop was extremely well organized by Yair Ein-Eli and Youssi Diamond. Even the minutest detail was taken care of. It was hot (110 F) but the views of the sea and the landscape around more than compensated for the heat. All the talks were of high quality including I hope mine. Visited the dead sea. See picture below, I may regret this some day.

A visit from Einstein

Even Einstein was here!!

(http://www.hetemeel.com/einsteinform.php)

Invitation to Blogspot for the Lab (LEAP)

Hello, This is the start of what would hopefully turn into a vibrant blog site related to Chemistry and all things related to clean energy. PLease upload your picture into the invitations to be sent by Chandresh

Finally we are here.....

Hello folks!!!!!!!!!!!