Dr. Wang will co-chair 2009 China-North America Fuel Cell Workshop to be held in Shanghai, China, August 13-15, 2009. http://fuelcell2009.sjtu.edu.cn/

Congratulations to Dr. Fuqiang Liu on becoming the 8^th professor produced from ECEC. A total of 8 research laboratories have been created by former post-docs and graduate students of ECEC:

Matt Mench group at Penn State University (2002)
Sukkee Um group at Hanyang University, Korea (2003)
Krishan Bahtia group at Rowan University (2004)
Hua Meng group at Zhejiang University, China (2005)
Ugur Pasaogullari group at University of Connecticut (2005)
Yun Wang group at University of California Irvine (2006)
Hyunchul Ju group at Inha University, Korea (2007)
Fuqiang Liu group at University of Texas Arlington (2006)
Note:  indicated in the bracket is the year of their graduation from ECEC.

Dr. Wang will be a Plenary speaker at the ASME 7^th International Fuel Cell Science, Engineering & Technology Conference held at Newport Beach, CA, June 8-10, 2009 (read more).

ECEC work was cited 1036 times in 2008 according to ISI Web of Science, and 3 papers published in 2006 won the titles of most cited papers in 2 journals. These are:

1st Place, Journal of the Electrochemical Society
Liquid water removal from a polymer electrolyte fuel cell Zhang FY, Yang XG, Wang CY

5th Place, Journal of the Electrochemical Society
A nonisothermal, two-phase model for polymer electrolyte fuel cells Wang Y, Wang CY

10th Place, Electrochemical & Solid-State Letters
Quantification of liquid water saturation in a PEM fuel cell diffusion medium using x-ray microtomography Sinha PK, Halleck P, Wang CY

We congratulate all ECEC members on another productive year and the above-mentioned highly cited authors on their superb work.

Penn State was recently ranked at the top as a single university in energy & fuels research in the past decade by Science Watch based on Science Citation Index (link).  ECEC research was singled out in the top 20 most cited authors in energy and fuels.

ECEC congratulates Ugur Pasaogullari, an ECEC alumnus in 2005 and now assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UConn, on receiving a prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

ECEC work was cited 830 times in 2007 according to ISI Web of Science, a 53% increase over 2006.

5 ECEC papers published in 2005 won the title of most cited papers in 4 journals of that year.  Read more.

ECEC welcomes two new members, Professor Mike Janik, Chemical Engineering, and Professor Michael Hickner, Materials Science and Engineering. Dr. Janik is specialized in electrocatalysis and computational design of electrodes for fuel cells, and Dr. Hickner is specialized in membrane development and advanced characterization as well as neutron imaging of liquid water in polymer electrolyte fuel cells.

ECEC Research Highlight: Advanced In-Situ Diagnostic Methods. Read More

Congratulations to Dr. Hyunchul Ju on becoming the 7^th professor produced from ECEC. A total of 7 research laboratories have been created by former post-docs and graduate students of ECEC:

Matt Mench group at Penn State University (2002)

Sukkee Um group at Hanyang University, Korea (2003)

Krishan Bahtia group at Rowan University (2004)

Hua Meng group at Zhejiang Unversity, China (2005)

Ugur Pasaogullari group at University of Connecticut (2005)

Yun Wang group at University of California Irvine (2006)

Hyunchul Ju group at Chungju National University, Korea (2007)

Note:  indicated in the bracket is the year of their graduation from ECEC.

ECEC is featured in the 2007 winter issue of FOCUS on Materials, the research bulletin of Materials Research Institute at Penn State. Read more.

7 ECEC papers published in 2004 win the title of most cited papers in 5 journals of that year. Electrochimica Acta announced that 2 ECEC papers win the first and third places of most cited papers in 2004. Read more.

A summary of all 7 most cited papers produced from ECEC in 2004 is shown here.

ECEC work was cited 544 times in 2006 according to SCI.

Professor Wang is to address at FC EXPO 2007, Tokyo, February 2007. His lecture is on water management in fuel cells.

Professor Wang is to deliver a keynote talk titled "Principles of Subzero Startup of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells" at the 5th International Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology Conference, June 18 - 20, 2007.

Professor Wang is to deliver 2 lectures at NATO Advanced Study Institute on MINI-MICRO FUEL CELLS AS ELECTRIC ENERGY GENERATORS, Cesme/Izmir-Turkey, July 22 - August 3, 2007.

This year ECEC graduates went to UTRC, UC Irvine, Plug Power and NREL. Dr. Fuqiang Liu accepted a senior materials scientist position at United Technology Research Center, Dr. Yun Wang begins his tenure-track assistant professor of mechanical engineering at University of California at Irvine (he is the 5^th professor produced from ECEC), Dr. Leng Mao now works as a research scientist at Plug Power, and Dr Kandler Smith accepted a research engineer position at National Renewable Energy Laboratory. On behalf of ECEC, Dr. Wang wishes all graduates great success in their future careers, and encourages new, talented applicants to apply for vacant positions at ECEC. We have numerous positions open, both for PhD students and post-docs, and in both experimental and modeling areas. If you are interested in and dedicated to fuel cell research, ECEC is a special place for you.

Professor Wang is to give an invited lecture at 2^nd Fuel Cell Durability and Performance Conference in December 2006, Miami Beach, FL. His lecture is titled “Water and heat transport in polymer electrolyte fuel cells,” in which he shall describe ECEC’s comprehensive efforts in quantitative imaging and multiscale modeling of water and heat transport. In addition, the profound impact of water and heat transport on PEM fuel cell performance, durability and cold-start capability and MEA degradation will be elaborated for the first time.

Professor Wang, along with 13 technical leaders around the world, gave an invited lecture at the 4^th International Fuel Cell Workshop, Yamanashi University, Japan. (http://www.clean.yamanashi.ac.jp/ifcw/index.html) His lecture is titled “Understanding PEFC Flooding via Multiscale Modeling and Physical Experiments,” in which he revealed, for the first time, the extensive research program at ECEC on the modeling and diagnostics of liquid water transport at the pore level in gas diffusion layer (GDL) and catalyst layer.  Novel diagnostic techniques such as X-ray microtomography have been applied successfully to quantitatively measure liquid water saturation and its distribution in GDL.

The novel MEA technology for DMFCs developed at ECEC is incorporated in a most compact DMFC system to date for laptop computers prototyped by Panasonic. Read more.

Mr. Puneet Sinha will present an invited talk at the Indian Fuel Cell Workshop on Feb.3^rd, 2006. His talk is titled “Pore-network modeling of liquid water transport in GDL of polymer electrolyte fuel cells.”

ECEC cutting-edge research on DMFC technology will be showcased at the Knowledge Foundation’s 8^th Annual Small Fuel Cell Symposium (http://www.knowledgepress.com/events/5251508.htm) in an invited talk titled “A Paradigm Shift in DMFC Design for Portable Power.”

ECEC multidisciplinary research on PEFC for automotive application will be showcased in a plenary lecture to be given at 3^rd Guangzhou Fuel Cell Conference, Guangzhou, June 2006.

Penn State-UCLA collaboration on high-performance DMFCs is featured in physicsweb.