SCHOOL AFFIATION

Greenville Early College (Greenville, SC)

FACULTY ADVISOR

Prof. Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte (Mechanical Engineering)

RESEARCH PROJECT OVERVIEW

Carbon electrodes are at the core of many everyday energy components like batteries and capacitors. However, the source of the carbon often includes non-renewable resources like petrochemicals, which can compromise the sustainability of the design. Furthermore, current energy components are usually an addition to a system, i.e., a car, and thus can severely add to the total weight of the system.   During this project, we determined how to porous carbon materials from renewable resources that can serve as structural electrodes. We shaped a biopolymer and then use controlled carbonization of the biopolymer. The challenge will be to control the shape through origami or robocasting.