Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli, professor of physics, and researchers at North Carolina State University have solved the mystery of how a specially designed polymer is able to store and release large amounts of energy. Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Naval Research, the work could result in more powerful and more efficient electric cars. The future, the researchers hope, is for an electric vehicle to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph at the same rate as a gasoline-powered sports car.
Their findings were published this spring in Physical Review Letters. Buongiorno-Nardelli is a member of UNT’s Materials Modeling research cluster, one of 15 multidisciplinary research clusters addressing complex scientific, technological, environmental and societal issues through collaboration and innovation.