Best of the Week: World Oceans Day, Spectroscopic Advances in Lithium-Ion Battery Analysis

World Oceans Day took place on June 8th, and we commemorated this day by spotlighting the role that spectroscopy has had on oceanography. We’ll talk about it here. Also, spectroscopy has come a long way in lithium-ion battery analysis, and numerous techniques are being used to propel the field forward. We explore the strides that spectroscopy has made in this critical industry.

This is the Best of the Week.

From the deepest seafloor to satellites orbiting overhead, spectroscopic techniques like Raman spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, fluorescence spectroscopy, and satellite-based sensing are transforming what we know about our oceans.¹ Researchers are using these methods to track microplastic pollution, monitor coral reef health, study deep-sea microbial life, and map ocean circulation in real time. The work going on behind the scenes is only getting more sophisticated as the technology improves. We have a full booklet dedicated to this topic, and we encourage you to check it out.

Also this week, we're featuring not one but two interviews with Sian Sloan-Dennison of the University of Strathclyde, recorded virtually as part of our coverage of the Spring SciX 2026 conference.^3,4 In our “Pathways in Spectroscopy” segment, she offers practical advice for Ph.D. students developing clinical Raman diagnostics, including why bringing real patient samples into your workflow early can make or break your research.² And in a separate feature, she walks us through an exciting platform that pairs surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) with digital microfluidics (DMF) to detect a key biomarker for drug-induced liver injury (DILI), with sensitivity down to 500 femtomolar.

We're also featuring a sweeping four-year review of spectroscopy's role in lithium-ion battery research. From Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) to machine learning (ML) and operando measurements, the field is progressing quickly, and the stakes couldn't be higher for the future of energy storage.⁵

Finally, we're asking a question that matters to the next generation: are good internships disappearing? We'll explore that in an upcoming “Pathways in Spectroscopy” interview.⁴

That's your Best of the Week. Thanks for reading Spectroscopy, and we’ll see you next week.

References

1. Wetzel, W. Celebrating World Oceans Day: How Spectroscopy is Advancing Oceanography. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/celebrating-world-oceans-day-how-spectroscopy-is-advancing-oceanography (accessed 2026-06-09).
2. Sloan-Dennison, S.; Wetzel, W. Pathways in Spectroscopy: Tips on Handling SERS Assays for Researchers. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/pathways-in-spectroscopy-tips-on-handling-sers-assays-for-researchers (accessed 2026-06-09).
3. Sloan-Dennison, S.; Wetzel, W. The Creation of New Point-of-Care Platforms Using Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy and Digital Microfluidics. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/the-creation-of-new-point-of-care-platforms-using-surface-enhanced-raman-spectroscopy-and-digital-microfluidics (accessed 2026-06-11).
4. Wetzel, W. Is It No Longer Possible to Find Good Internships? Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/is-it-no-longer-possible-to-find-good-internships- (accessed 2026-06-11).
5. Workman, Jr., J.; Wetzel, W. Lithium-Ion Battery Analysis: Four Years of Spectroscopic Advances in Research, Manufacturing, and Quality Assessment. Spectrosc. Suppl. 2026, ASAP. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/lithium-ion-battery-analysis-four-years-of-spectroscopic-advances-in-research-manufacturing-and-quality-assessment (accessed 2026-06-09).