A 17-year-old Mighty Girl Shannon Xinjing Lee of Singapore has invented a
ground-breaking electrocatalyst that may revolutionize rechargeable batteries
-- a discovery that earned her one of the two 2014 Intel Foundation Young
Scientist Awards!
Her electrocatalyst, made entirely from carbonized
Chinese eggplant, greatly outperforms commercial catalysts in stability and
longevity while being cheaper and more environmentally friendly to produce.
Shannon's invention, for which she was also awarded a $50,000 prize and the
first prize in the science fair's "Energy and Transportation" category, could
be especially helpful in making zinc-air batteries practical. Zinc-air batteries
are safer, lighter, and have six times the energy density of lithium ion
batteries and her eggplant-derived catalyst could help make them stable
enough for use in hybrid vehicles and other applications.
The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair is the world's largest
high school science fair and 1,700 young scientists, selected from 435
regional fairs in more than 70 countries, participated in this year's
competition in Los Angeles.
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