New Catapult Grant funded!
Congratulations to Dr Deepak Dubal and his team! Deepak is the lead investigator on the project entitled “Empowering Waste: Transformation of Cotton-Waste into value-added Materials for Next Generation Battery Technology”, which was awarded funding of $64,084 in the most recent round of IFE Catapult grants.
The team includes as well: A/Prof. Jennifer MacLeod and Prof. Nunzio Motta (QUT Science and Engineering Faculty), Prof. William Doherty (Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities), Prof Alice Payne (Creative Industries)
Project summary:
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are extensively used as efficient power-source in portable-electronics due to its high-energy-density and long-life cycle. However, the restricted lithium-resources and high-cost hinders large-scale applications of LIBs, which urgently demands for alternative low-cost energy-storage-system from abundant resources.
Potassium-ion batteries (KIB) attract tremendous attention for large-scale applications due to abundance of K-resources. Electrodes play a key role in KIB-technology. Thus, the project aims to develop cheap and sustainable KIB using cotton/textile-waste-derived unique carbon-materials.
Cotton contains pure-cellulose, which is rich source of carbon, making cotton as ideal feedstock for KIB-electrode-synthesis. Given the global fashion-industry produces approximately 80 billion garments annually, which results in significant volumes of pre-consumer-textile-waste (15% of fabric-meterage) that could be diverted to KIB-electrodes as high-value-applications. Herein, other cotton-waste including cotton-gin-trash or post-consumer cotton-garments could also be utilised. Thus, the project is expected to meet urgent demands for cotton/textile-waste disposal and sustainable battery-technology, shifting towards-circular-economy.