Congratulations to John Waugh! John’s article “Hierarchically porous electrospun carbon nanofiber for high-rate capacitive deionization electrodes” has been selected as a VINSE spotlight publication.
John Waugh is a 2023 Ph.D. graduate from the Interdisciplinary Materials Science Program under the direction of Dr. Peter Pintauro. He is currently a research scientist at the Toyota Research Institute of North America with Dr. John Muldoon after graduation to further expand his research on electrochemical energy storage systems. During his time at Vanderbilt University, John Waugh was a guest student at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where he conducted research on capacitive deionization – using capacitors to desalinate water. In a recent publication in Desalination, John Waugh presents the fabrication, characterization, and performance of hierarchically porous electrospun carbon nanofiber electrodes used as capacitive deionization electrodes. These highly porous nanofiber electrodes exhibit a promising combination of desalination capacity and rate. Additionally, through collaboration with Dr. Qinjun Kang’s modelling team at LANL, the authors demonstrate how a balance between microporosity and mesoporosity enables optimal desalination performance.