What happens when you zap a chemical solution is the electrochemist's bailiwick. However, general readers can charge up their brains on the field's applications and history at the Electrochemistry Encyclopedia,* edited by retired chemist Zoltan Nagy of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The subjects of the 25 expert-written chapters range from electroplating to electric fish to pioneering electrochemists. Read about electrochemical machining, which uses a current to shape hard-to-work alloys, or explore the life of the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta, who sparked the nascent discipline more than 200 years ago by building the first battery.

If your memory short-circuits over unfamiliar terms, click over to the linked dictionary dag that furnishes 800 definitions.

http://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/dict.htm

Volume 317, Number 5835, Issue of 13 July 2007