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A new recycling approach developed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researchers could help make battery waste a valuable source of high-performance materials. In a study published in Advanced Energy Materials, one of the leading journals in the field, a team led by Professor Yan Wang, the William B. Smith Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, converted mixed battery waste into upcycled materials for both the cathode and anode and found that the resulting pouch cells outlasted cells made with commercial counterparts. As lithium-ion battery use grows, so does the pressure on supplies of critical materials and the volume of discarded batteries. Many current recycling methods focus on recovering cathode materials, and mixed battery waste can be difficult to process into products with high value. Wang’s team developed an approach that upgrades both cathode and graphite materials recovered from battery waste. What happens when both cathodes and anodes are recycled and upgraded? The researchers converted mixed, low-nickel cathode materials into a high-performance cathode called NMC622. They also purified and modified recovered graphite to make battery-grade anode material. Tests found improved lithium-ion transport and cycling stability in the cathode and better interfacial kinetics and durability in the graphite anode. Can recycled battery materials outperform commercial alternatives? The team then assembled full pouch cells using only the upcycled cathode and anode materials. The cells had fewer side reactions and approximately twice the cycle life of cells using commercial materials, retaining 70% of their capacity after 2,590 cycles. What are the environmental and economic benefits of this recycling process? The researchers also assessed the process’s potential economic and environmental benefits. Their analyses indicated that it could use more than 95% of waste materials, increase profitability by 22.9%, and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 27% and energy consumption by 29.4% compared with the reference recycling route. What could this mean for the future of circular battery manufacturing? The findings point to a path beyond recovering raw materials from used batteries: turning complex waste into components that can be used to make high-performance batteries. That could support more circular battery manufacturing while reducing the resources and energy needed to produce new materials. How is WPI advancing more sustainable battery technologies? Wang and his team at WPI have led extensive research into new ways to recycle and upgrade battery materials. His group has developed approaches to recover valuable materials from used electric vehicle batteries and to improve battery safety and sustainability through advances in recycling and battery design. Read more about WPI’s battery recycling research and other advances led by Wang’s team at: https://wp.wpi.edu/eel/.

Researchers in the laboratory of Xinming Huang who are developing a tool to analyze skin images for signs of skin cancer have finished third in an international artificial intelligence (AI) competition aimed at improving early diagnosis of melanoma, a potentially lethal type of skin cancer. The team’s model combined two types of AI to finish third in the competition, which was organized by the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC). The challenge drew 181 teams of academic and corporate researchers. “Melanoma can be difficult for primary care doctors, especially those who are not skin experts, to identify in its early stages,” says Huang, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “AI has the potential to help those physicians spot patients who need to be referred to specialists.”  TwinSight, the model under development in Huang’s lab, builds on research that PhD student Antony Garcia Gonzalez and Huang reported in 2025 in the peer-reviewed journal Cancers. TwinSight analyzes the visual characteristics of a lesion using both a convolutional neural network and a vision transformer, two different deep-learning computer programs that examine complex patterns in data. The TwinSight model seeks to address a critical problem: Melanoma, especially in its early stages, can be difficult to visually distinguish from benign skin moles, and delays in diagnosis and treatment raise the risk that the cancer will spread.  Primary care physicians will often refer patients with suspicious lesions to dermatologists, who will typically examine the lesions using a dermoscope, a magnifying tool, and perform a skin biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.

A new study from researchers, including those in Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has found the fastest-growing plant on Earth may offer a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to petroleum-derived transportation fuels. The researchers, including Michael Timko, the William B. Smith Professor of chemical engineering and head of the department, and Timothy Woodard, MS’23, PhD ’26, have demonstrated that bamboo could serve as a highly promising raw material for the production of sustainable liquid fuels to power vehicles, planes, and trains. The team’s study, published in the journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels, finds that bamboo can be turned into fuel at a production cost that is competitive to conventional petroleum fuels and with substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions. The study combined laboratory experiments measuring bamboo-to-biocrude conversion efficiency with economic and life-cycle assessment modeling. Michael Timko “Our study suggests bamboo has a role to play in the future of fuel,” says Timko. “I think this research is especially timely and important because fuel prices are high and the transportation sector produces more greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. than any other. Bamboo would use different land than we are using for food production, so there is no food versus fuel trade-off. Farmers win, consumers win.”  Key factors in the study are the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology that converts biomass to fuel and the choice of feedstock. Using bamboo for fuel can reduce greenhouse gasses in two ways: The process to convert it into biocrude is more efficient than when using other feedstocks, and bamboo itself captures and stores large amounts of carbon both above and below ground. Because of the plant’s fast growth even in poor soil conditions, the study finds that converting bamboo into fuel through HTL could match the level of corn-ethanol production in the U.S. while also using roughly 13% as much cultivated land. Unlike annual crops used for many biofuels, bamboo is a perennial grass that can produce large amounts of biomass with relatively low agricultural inputs. And, compared with other perennial grasses, bamboo has very low ash content (less than 1% by dry weight), meaning that the conversion process generates negligible waste. Economic modeling indicates that bamboo-based fuel could sell for as little as $2.75 per gasoline-gallon equivalent under mature commercial-scale conditions, accounting for the money required to build and operate the fuel plant, suggesting strong economic competitiveness as the renewable-fuel industry expands. The team’s analysis also finds that using bamboo as a fuel source creates a level of greenhouse gas emissions 26 times lower than those of conventional petroleum diesel fuel: A life-cycle assessment, considering the ability of bamboo to store large amounts of carbon in its underground rhizomes , finds producing fuel from bamboo and its use would generate a greenhouse gas intensity of 3.5 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent per megajoule of energy.