The energy transition needs enormous amounts of stationary storage. Lithium-ion dominates, but lithium and cobalt carry supply constraints and geopolitical exposure. Sodium-ion batteries have emerged as a leading candidate — abundant, cheap, evenly distributed. The bottleneck is the anode: hard carbon, a disordered, nanoporous carbon whose ability to store sodium depends intricately on its microstructure.
My current research applies a decade of pyrolysis and biomass-fractionation expertise to control that microstructure for electrochemical performance. The same core skill — turning variable biomass residue into high-value structured carbon — now aimed at the next strategically urgent application.