Bacterial cellulose—nature’s own polymer scaffold—is gaining attention as a renewable feedstock for supercapacitor electrodes. With modern devices demanding fast charge, high power bursts, and long cycle life, researchers are searching for electrode materials that combine performance with sustainability.

A new systematic literature review led by Prof. Dahlang Tahir at Hasanuddin University, Indonesia, maps how bacterial cellulose-derived carbon (BCC) is turned into energy-storage electrodes—and why some fabrication paths outperform others. The study synthesizes evidence from the scientific record to clarify which processing choices control electrochemical behavior.

The review focuses on BCC as a precursor to porous carbon. Bacterial cellulose forms a naturally pure, interconnected network of nanoscale fibers, and heat treatment can convert that architecture into carbon structures with tunable porosity—critical for charge storage. The authors emphasize that electrical performance is not just a matter of “making carbon,” but of preserving and engineering the fiber network before carbonization.

Across 49 Scopus-indexed journal articles, the team compares major strategies including direct carbonization, chemical activation to enlarge pore systems, heteroatom doping to modify surface chemistry, and composite fabrication with materials that can add rapid redox (pseudocapacitive) contributions.

A recurring message is the importance of pre-carbonization drying. Freeze-drying appears as the most commonly used approach because it limits collapse of the wet nanofiber structure during water removal. Since pore architecture governs ion access and charge transport, maintaining nanoscale structure can translate into higher effective capacitance.

The review also distinguishes test formats. Three-electrode measurements are frequently reported, but two-electrode devices better represent real supercapacitor operation, where electrode–electrode interactions shape performance.

When processing is optimized, the results point toward a pathway for BCC-based electrodes to rival or surpass commercial activated carbon under comparable conditions. Activation and heteroatom doping generally increase accessible surface area and create additional active sites, while composites often achieve the strongest capacitance by combining electrical double-layer effects with fast surface reactions.

Yet the authors warn that progress is constrained by inconsistent experimental reporting, uneven protocols, and limited mechanistic understanding. To move beyond laboratory demonstrations, they call for predictive design, data-driven structure–performance models, scalable carbonization methods, and robust flexible devices resistant to deformation and humidity.

Subject of Research: Supercapacitor electrodes using bacterial cellulose-derived carbon
Article Title: Bacterial cellulose-derived carbon electrodes for supercapacitors: Fabrication strategies, electrochemical performance, and mechanical properties — A review
News Publication Date: 9 June 2026
Web References: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2026.123044
References: 10.1016/j.est.2026.123044
Image Credits: Lightenoughtotravel from Wikimedia Commons

Keywords

bacterial cellulose; supercapacitors; porous carbon; freeze-drying; chemical activation; heteroatom doping; electrode materials; two-electrode testing; pseudocapacitance; sustainable energy storage

Google's biggest solar and battery project stands in sharp contrast with xAI's nearby unpermitted power plant.

BYD Energy Storage has landed a contract to supply 11.275 GWh of battery storage for Masdar’s Round the Clock (RTC) project in Abu Dhabi — one of the single largest energy storage procurements ever signed.

The RTC project pairs a 5.2 GW solar array with a 19 GWh battery system, making it the world’s largest combined solar-plus-storage plant. BYD’s award covers the majority of that storage.

China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG) has put the world’s largest solar PV-plus-concentrated-solar hybrid into commercial trial operation in the Gobi Desert — and its headline trick is delivering power after sunset without a single lithium battery.

The 1-gigawatt Hami project in Xinjiang stores the sun’s energy as heat in molten salt, letting it keep generating for up to eight hours after dark.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say underground aquifers could offer an unexpected solution to one of artificial intelligence’s fastest-growing environmental challenges: cooling the massive data centers that power the technology.

As protests and debates continue over the rapid expansion of AI data centers around the world, researchers are exploring new ways to manage the enormous amounts of energy and water required to keep these facilities running. To meet such demands, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team has proposed an innovative solution: using underground aquifers as natural “thermal batteries” to cool data centers while reducing their environmental footprint.

Critics have raised concerns ranging from the vast quantities of water consumed by AI infrastructure to the ethical implications of job displacement and the broader societal impacts of artificial intelligence. Against that backdrop, designing AI systems that reduce their climate impact could represent an important step toward more sustainable computing.

Researchers Yu-Feng Lin, Andrew Stumpf, and postdoctoral researcher Upasana Pandey from the Prairie Research Institute’s Illinois State Geological Survey explored the potential of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) as a cooling strategy for data centers. The team suggests underground water systems could provide an efficient alternative to traditional cooling methods. Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Groundwater.

“Data centers use large amounts of electricity, and 10 to 40% of that energy can go just to cooling, depending on the design,” Pandey said in a statement. “They also consume tremendous volumes of water, often through cooling methods where water is evaporated and effectively lost from the local supply.”

To address both challenges, the researchers propose using groundwater stored beneath Earth’s surface as a reusable thermal energy storage system. ATES can provide direct or supplemental cooling by circulating groundwater through underground pipes. Cool groundwater absorbs heat through a heat exchanger before the warmed water is returned to the aquifer for seasonal storage. The system can also store excess summer heat for winter heating and preserve cold winter water for use during the summer months.

“In places like Illinois, where we experience seasonality, and when the subsurface geology is ideal, instead of constantly trying to moderate the outdoor temperatures that swing from 90°F in summer to minus 10°F in winter, we can tap into the Earth’s near-constant temperature,” Stumpf said. “You’re no longer adjusting from 90°F to 70°F; you’re adjusting from about 55°F to 70°F. That’s a huge energy savings.”

Illinois is particularly well-suited for aquifer thermal energy storage because of its pronounced seasonal temperature swings, favorable aquifer characteristics, and suitable subsurface geology. The system can utilize non-potable water sources, including deep saline aquifers, contaminated groundwater, and even abandoned mines.

According to the researchers, the primary barriers to broader adoption are the high upfront installation costs and relatively short investment timelines, rather than technical feasibility.

“Data centers sit at the center of the water-energy nexus: If you try to reduce energy use, you often use more water, and if you reduce water use, you may need more energy,” Lin said. “Our work looks for solutions that address both together.”

“Water is a magic material in this context because it has high heat capacity and can be a good thermal carrier with flow,” he adds.

“That combination is rare, and in groundwater, we can tap those same properties for energy storage.”

Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.

Poisson spots, a light phenomenon first discovered two centuries ago, have been employed by researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), to produce optical skyrmions, a stable light pattern, with major implications for cutting-edge data storage research.

Published in the journal Optica, the NTU researchers describe producing small, swirling optical skyrmions using only a laser focused on a small disk, thereby eliminating the need for complex, expensive equipment typically required to achieve the same effect.

The NTU team’s breakthrough allows optical scientists to generate, control, and study this optical light phenomenon much more easily than before.

Data in Light

In the search for optimal data storage and retrieval methods, scientists have been considering skyrmions as a potential next-generation solution for communication and computing applications. Earlier skyrmion work required metamaterials engineered with complex microstructures, although at great expense.

“What is remarkable is that optical skyrmions can now be generated using a simple effect where light bends around an object, without relying on expensive, complex man-made metamaterials or highly specialised techniques,” explained co-author Shen Yijie, of NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

“This could make optical skyrmions much more accessible to researchers,” Shen continued. “By lowering the technical barrier to creating and studying them, the method opens up new possibilities for scientists to study how they could be used in future optical, materials, and computing research.”

The Nature of Light

Scientists have been interested in the Poisson spot since the early 19th century, as part of the debate over whether light travels as waves or particles. When a coherent light source—in this case, a laser—strikes a circular object, a bright point appears at the center of its shadow. That bright point is what physicists refer to as the Poisson spot.

This is created by light diffraction, the bending and spreading that occurs when it moves through an object or a small opening. Nineteenth-century experiments, which produced the Poisson spot instead of the solid darkness normally expected of a shadow, were major evidence for diffraction—the wave-like behavior of light.

Skyrmions have been studied from many angles over the years, first out of an interest in particle physics and nuclear physics; then in condensed matter physics and magnetic materials research, and now in photonics.

Producing Skyrmions

The new Poisson spot-based system developed by the NTU team creates four distinct patterns at the same time: spin skyrmions, Stokes skyrmions, electric-field skyrmions, and magnetic-field skyrmions. Spin describes how the light rotates, while Stokes parameters quantify the light wave’s polarization as it travels.

By possessing this “four-in-one” behavior, the researchers say these expressions could provide a valuable opportunity to study skyrmion formations, variety, and interaction within a single light field.

The NTU team’s simulations of skyrmions depict them as swirls of arrows, enabling researchers to track how light’s properties change direction as it traverses the Poisson spot. The intensity, phase, polarization, spin, electric, and magnetic field vectors of light can all be manipulated by scientists to create patterns in light called topological structures, enabling researchers to control the size, shape, and behavior of skyrmions.

“In the light spot that we created, several types of optical vectors could form topological structures at the same time,” Shen explained. “These different components of light are closely connected, but they do not necessarily form identical topological patterns.”

“Being able to produce and compare several skyrmions within one system could help researchers uncover new links between light’s electric, magnetic, and other physical properties,” Shen concluded.

Going forward, the NTU team hopes that their work will help to quite literally illuminate a new path for the future of data storage and communications technologies.

The paper, “Optical Skyrmions in Poisson Spots,” appeared in Optica on June 18, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.