11 basketball courts in 1 teaspoon: this new material, originating from the space age, could be the key to the next generation of batteries and ultra-small energy cells
- Researchers create a form of carbon with an incredible surface area
- This would allow the material to retain more substance, including various chemicals
- Hypergolic agents are widely used in jet propulsion
Researchers at Cornell University have developed a nanoporous carbon material with the highest surface area ever reported.
The breakthrough uses a chemical reaction similar to the ignition of rocket fuel and could be used to improve carbon dioxide capture and energy storage technologies, potentially advancing the next generation of batteries.
Increasing the porosity of carbon is key to improving its performance in applications such as pollutant adsorption (where pollutants stick to the surface of the material) and energy storage. The new material has a surface area of 4,800 square meters per gram – comparable to the size of an American football field or eleven basketball courts, compressed into one teaspoon.
A bright future for batteries
“It is very important to have more surface area per mass, but you can get to a point where there is no material left. It’s just air,” said senior author Emmanuel Giannelis of Cornell Engineering’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “So the challenge is how much of that porosity can you introduce and still retain structure, along with enough yield to do something practical with it.”
Giannelis worked with postdoctoral researcher Nikolaos Chalpes, who adapted hypergolic reactions – high-energy chemical reactions typically used in rocket propulsion – to synthesize this carbon.
Chalpes explained that by refining the process they were able to achieve ultra-high porosity. Previously, such reactions were used exclusively in space applications, but their rapid and intense nature proved ideal for creating new nanostructures.
The process, detailed in ACS Nanostarts with sucrose and a template material, which guides the formation of the carbon structure. When combined with specific chemicals, the hypergolic reaction produces carbon tubes that contain highly reactive five-membered molecular rings. Subsequent treatment with potassium hydroxide removes less stable structures, leaving a network of microscopic pores.
The say researchers the material absorbs carbon dioxide almost twice as effectively as conventional activated carbon, reaching 99% of its total capacity in less than two minutes. It also demonstrated a volumetric energy density of 60 watt-hours per liter – four times that of commercial alternatives. This makes it particularly promising for batteries and small energy cells, where efficient energy storage in compact spaces is critical, and opens avenues for designing electrocatalysts and nanoparticle alloys.