Electrochemistry

Camille Alphonse Faure (21 May 1840 – 14 September 1898) was a French chemical engineer who in 1881 significantly improved the design of the lead-acid battery, which had been invented by Gaston Planté in 1859. Faure's improvements greatly increased the capacity of such batteries and led directly to their manufacture on an industrial scale. The patents were assigned to the Société La Force et la Lumière. The right to use these patents in the British Isles were sold to the Faure Electric Accumulator Company on 29 March 1881. Faure was a consultant engineer with William Edward Ayrton for this company.

Max Volmer (3 May 1885 – 3 June 1965) was a German physical chemist, who made important contributions in electrochemistry, in particular on electrode kinetics. He co-developed the Butler–Volmer equation. Volmer held the chair and directorship of the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute of the Technische Hochschule Berlin, in Berlin-Charlottenburg. After World War II, he went to the Soviet Union, where he headed a design bureau for the production of heavy water. Upon his return to East Germany ten years later, he became a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin and was president of the East German Academy of Sciences.

Susan A. Odom (16 November 1980 – 18 April 2021) was a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky who developed redox active organic compounds for energy storage applications.

In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from naturally occurring sources such as ores using an electrolytic cell. The voltage that is needed for electrolysis to occur is called the decomposition potential. The word "lysis" means to separate or break, so in terms, electrolysis would mean "breakdown via electricity."

An oxidizing agent (also known as an oxidant, oxidizer, electron recipient, or electron acceptor) is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or "accepts"/"receives" an electron from a reducing agent (called the reductant, reducer, or electron donor). In other words, an oxidizer is any substance that oxidizes another substance. The oxidation state, which describes the degree of loss of electrons, of the oxidizer decreases while that of the reductant increases; this is expressed by saying that oxidizers "undergo reduction" and "are reduced" while reducers "undergo oxidation" and "are oxidized". Common oxidizing agents are oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, and the halogens.

Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference and identifiable chemical change. These reactions involve electrons moving via an electronically conducting phase (typically an external electrical circuit, but not necessarily, as in electroless plating) between electrodes separated by an ionically conducting and electronically insulating electrolyte (or ionic species in a solution).

The Electrochemical Society is a learned society (professional association) based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of electrochemistry solid-state science and related technology. The Society membership comprises more than 8,000 scientists and engineers in over 85 countries at all degree levels and in all fields of electrochemistry, solid-state science and related technologies. Additional support is provided by institutional members including corporations and laboratories.

John Scott Newman (b. 17 Nov 1938) is a retired professor of the University of California and renowned battery and electrochemical engineer researcher. The university's Department of Chemical Engineering's Newman Research Group was founded by Newman and "interests of this research group include the investigation of efficient and economical methods for electrochemical energy conversion and storage, development of mathematical models to predict the behavior of electrochemical systems and to identify important process parameters, and experimental verification of the completeness and accuracy of the models". Newman also worked for the Electrochemical Technologies Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he was a Faculty Senior Scientist. He served as director of the Department of Energy’s Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies Program. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1999 and was an Onsager Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2002. Venkat Srinivasan has called Newman "the father of electrochemical engineering."

1) N4 Macrocyclic Metal Complexes. J.H. ZAGAL, F. Bedioui, J.P. Dodelet (Eds), Springer New York ( 2006).

Samuel Ruben (14 July 1900 – 16 July 1988) was an American inventor who made lasting contributions to electrochemistry and solid-state technology, including the founding of Duracell. He is listed as an inventor in over 200 patents.