Achievement

John Chmiola (advisor Yury Gogotsi, Drexel) has provided increased understanding of capacitive energy storage and development of electrochemical capacitors by showing that ions can enter pores smaller than their solvation shell, due to partial desolvation (Science 2006). This paper and his follow-up publications in Angewandte Chemie (2008) and Journal of the American Chemical Society (2008) led to a major breakthrough in the field and dramatic improvements in the gravimetric and volumetric capacitance of porous carbon electrodes. A story featured on the National Science Foundation web site and NSF Current newsletter about this technology ranked second among readers' favorites for 2008.