Cary Pint

Imagine a box you plug into the wall that cleans your toxic air and pays you cash. That’s essentially what Vanderbilt University researchers produced after discovering the blueprint for turning the carbon dioxide into the most valuable material ever sold – carbon nanotubes with small diameters. Carbon nanotubes are supermaterials… Read More

Imagine slipping into a jacket, shirt or skirt that powers your cell phone, fitness tracker and other personal electronic devices as you walk, wave and even when you are sitting down. A new, ultrathin energy harvesting system developed at Vanderbilt University’s Nanomaterials and Energy Devices… Read More

An interdisciplinary materials science graduate student has been selected for a prestigious entrepreneurship program to scale and commercialize a revolutionary method of carbon nanotube production. Anna Douglas is one of five entrepreneurs selected for the inaugural cohort of the Department of Energy Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory… Read More

Cary Pint, right, Andrew Westover and Nitin Muralidharan, who is holding the prototype junkyard battery they created in his left hand. He and Westover are holding bottles of the common household chemicals used in the process. (Vanderbilt University) Vanderbilt researchers who “MacGyvered” metal junkyard scraps and common household… Read More

  Anna Douglas holding one of the batteries that she has modified by adding millions of quantum dots made from iron pyrite, fool’s gold. (John Russell / Vanderbilt) If you add quantum dots – nanocrystals 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair – to a… Read More

Creating products that also function as ‘energy depots’ offers tremendous potential because “there are so many materials and technologies where energy storage can be integrated,” says Cary Pint. Read More

Close-up of structural supercapacitor. (Joe Howell / Vanderbilt) Imagine a future in which our electrical gadgets are no longer limited by plugs and external power sources. This intriguing prospect is one of the reasons for the current interest in building the capacity to store electrical energy directly into… Read More

The most popular Vanderbilt research stories of 2013 plumbed mysteries of the brain, examined complex social phenomena, shed light on dark matter, uncovered a surprising link among our three greatest health threats and more. Of the top ten stories, Akos Ledeczi and Kenneth Pence with Vanderbilt’s Institute for Software Integrated… Read More

Silicon chip with porous surface next to the special furnace where it was coated with graphene to create a supercapacitor electrode. (Joe Howell / Vanderbilt)   Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in… Read More

The technique, which was developed by Vanderbilt University Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Rizia Bardhan, is described in a paper published online Aug. 4 by the journal Nature Materials. In the last 30 years, there has been a tremendous amount of research studying nanocrystals – tiny crystals sized… Read More