Hardware News and Headlines

How Chemists Turned Bourbon Waste Into Supercapacitors

Chemists at the University of Kentucky have devised a hydrothermal carbonization process that converts bourbon distillery stillage—a waste stream six to ten times larger than the final product—into hard and activated carbon powders. These carbon materials serve as electrodes for supercapacitors, achieving energy storage up to 48 W·h/kg and, in a hybrid lithium‑ion design, up to 25 times the energy density of conventional devices. The team demonstrated proof‑of‑concept cells and highlighted the method’s potential for scaling and sustainability, presenting their findings at the American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta.