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.

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 217th meeting of The Electrochemical Society, in Vancouver, Canada, from April 25 to 30, 2010.

The papers included in this issue of ECS Transactions were originally presented in the symposium ¿Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry 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.