The papers included in this issue of ECS Transactions were originally presented in the symposium ¿Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering General Session¿, held during the 213th meeting of The Electrochemical Society, in Phoenix, Arizona from May 18 to 23, 2008.

This book presents a complete overview of the powerful but often misused technique of Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The book presents a systematic and complete overview of EIS. The book carefully describes EIS and its application in studies of electrocatalytic reactions and other electrochemical processes of practical interest. This book is directed towards graduate students and researchers in Electrochemistry. Concepts are illustrated through detailed graphics and numerous examples. The book also includes practice problems. Additional materials and solutions are available online.

This book covers a significant number of R&D projects, performed mostly after 2000, devoted to the understanding and prevention of performance degradation processes in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). The extent and severity of performance degradation processes in PEFCs were recognized rather gradually. Indeed, the recognition overlapped with a significant number of industrial dem- strations of fuel cell powered vehicles, which would suggest a degree of technology maturity beyond the resaolution of fundamental failure mechanisms. An intriguing question, therefore, is why has there been this apparent delay in addressing fun- mental performance stability requirements. The apparent answer is that testing of the power system under fully realistic operation conditions was one prerequisite for revealing the nature and extent of some key modes of PEFC stack failure. Such modes of failure were not exposed to a similar degree, or not at all, in earlier tests of PEFC stacks which were not performed under fully relevant conditions, parti- larly such tests which did not include multiple on–off and/or high power–low power cycles typical for transportation and mobile power applications of PEFCs. Long-term testing of PEFCs reported in the early 1990s by both Los Alamos National Laboratory and Ballard Power was performed under conditions of c- stant cell voltage, typically near the maximum power point of the PEFC.

This collection offers new research findings, innovations, and industrial technological developments in extractive metallurgy, energy and environment, and materials processing. Technical topics included in the book are thermodynamics and kinetics of metallurgical reactions, electrochemical processing of materials, plasma processing of materials, composite materials, ionic liquids, thermal energy storage, energy efficient and environmental cleaner technologies and process modeling. These topics are of interest not only to traditional base ferrous and non-ferrous metal industrial processes but also to new and upcoming technologies, and they play important roles in industrial growth and economy worldwide.

This textbook is intended for a one-semester course in corrosion science at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level. The approach is that of a physical chemist or materials scientist, and the text is geared toward students of chemistry, materials science, and engineering. This textbook should also be useful to practicing corrosion engineers or materials engineers who wish to enhance their understanding of the fundamental principles of corrosion science. It is assumed that the student or reader does not have a background in electrochemistry. However, the student or reader should have taken at least an undergraduate course in materials science or physical chemistry. More material is presented in the textbook than can be covered in a one-semester course, so the book is intended for both the classroom and as a source book for further use. This book grew out of classroom lectures which the author presented between 1982 and the present while a professorial lecturer at George Washington University, Washington, DC, where he organized and taught a graduate course on “Environmental Effects on Materials.” Additional material has been provided by over 30 years of experience in corrosion research, largely at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC and also at the Bethlehem Steel Company, Bethlehem, PA and as a Robert A. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas. The text emphasizes basic principles of corrosion science which underpin extensions to practice.