Being made from whiskey, a researcher said “the first step was to engage with distillery owners, build trust and convince them to let us in!“
produced, you get six to 10 times that amount of stillage as waste,” said Josiel Barrios Cossio, a graduate student at the University of Kentucky. “So it’s a big deal.” In a new study, Barrios Cossio and collagues say that they have found a way to turn that soggy byproduct into high‑performance supercapacitors that can store up to 25 times theUnlike batteries, which store energy chemically, supercapacitors store energy electrostatically.
They tend to be long-lasting, thermally stable and charge/discharge more rapidly in comparison with batteries, but have a much lower energy density, meaning that their storage capacity is significantly lower. The findings of the team's study will be presented this week at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2026 meeting, which is being held in Atlanta, Georgia from March 22–26.Stillage is the thick, wet mash left over after alcohol is distilled from fermented grains such as corn. It is typically sold as livestock feed or used as a soil additive, but its high water content makes it heavy, difficult to transport and expensive to dry.traineeship focused on food, energy and water challenges in Kentucky. “We could take the stillage as it is—with a lot of water—and use that disadvantage as an advantage,” he said.Rather than drying the waste, the researchers used a process called hydrothermal carbonization, which Barrios Cossio describes as similar to high‑intensity pressure cooking.Carbon materials are widely used in energy storage, particularly in supercapacitors. Unlike batteries, supercapacitors are not designed to store energy for long periods, but they can release power very quickly and last through many more charge–discharge cycles. Previous studies had shown that agricultural waste such as corn fibers could be converted into usable carbon through this process. Bourbon stillage—which contains a blend of grains—had not previously been tested.Barrios Cossio and Marcelo Guzman—a chemist at the University of Kentucky and principal investigator on the project—worked with distillery owners across Kentucky, Illinois and Canada to collect samples. “The first step was to engage with distillery owners, build trust and convince them to let us in and do something fun with it,” Barrios Cossio said. In a 10-liter reactor, the researchers used heat and pressure to transfrom wet stillage into a fine black powder. That powder was then heated, under different conditions, to create two types of carbon materials used as electrodes. These were:Activated carbon , which is highly porous and can hold large amounts of electrical charge within its internal surface area.For a proof‑of‑concept, the team first built conventional supercapacitors using activated carbon electrodes. These coin‑sized devices stored up to 48 watt‑hours per kilogram, similar to commercially available supercapacitors. They then developed hybrid lithium‑ion supercapacitors, which combine features of batteries and supercapacitors by using two different types of electrodes. In these devices, the researchers paired an activated carbon electrode with a hard carbon electrode—both of which were derived from bourbon stillage—and infused them with lithium ions. The result was a significant jump in performance, with devices storing up to 25 times more energy per kilogram than conventional supercapacitors. “It was a huge discovery for me that you can make hybrid devices from this waste,” Barrios Cossio said. “Hybrid devices are not common. Not common and not easy to make.”Guzman said the project shows how local industrial challenges can be linked to global energy needs. “This project allowed us to link with a real‑world problem with industries at our state level,” he said. “And that was super cool.” The researchers are now studying how energy storage works inside the stillage‑derived devices so they can refine the design for potential commercial use. They also plan to conduct life‑cycle, economic and feasibility analyses to assess whether the process could be scaled up. Ultimately, the team hopes the technology could help stabilize the electrical grid as renewable energy sources are added—turning one of Kentucky’s biggest waste streams into a valuable energy resource. Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about supercapacitors? Let us know viaBarrios Cossio, J. de J., Guzman, M., Andrews, R., Martin-Gullon, I., Darlami, S., Gómez Urbano, J. L., & Balducci, A. .. ACS Spring 2026, Atlanta, Georgia.
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