“At UNCG I’ve directed my research toward the design and manufacture of nanomaterials for environmental sustainability applications – energy harvesting, energy storage, water purification, and critical minerals. We’ve designed a series of novel nanomaterials. One can selectively extract critical minerals while also purifying wastewater. We also make nanomaterials that are biomolecules, which can self-assemble into very thin metal wires that you can use in the semiconductor industry for patterning transistors.”

“The nanomaterial we developed using agricultural waste makes a very environmentally friendly biomass-based nanomaterial. It can absorb the most important critical minerals that we use for batteries in electric vehicles – for example, lithium. We can make it cheaper and at room temperature, using minimal water. The commercial potential is huge. The economic impact that we can make is huge if we can solve the problem of directly extracting lithium from water resources.”