Help a team from Illinois Institute of Technology win the popular vote in the 2015 Create the Future Design Contest, held by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine.

John Katsoudas (PHYS ’96, MS ’03), senior research associate at IIT, and Carlo Segre, Duchossois Leadership Professor of Physics, have entered their rechargeable nanoelectrofuel battery for electric vehicles. Click here to vote, registration is required. Voting is open until Friday, September 11.

Nanoelectrofuels are liquid electrodes containing suspended high energy density cathode or anode nanomaterials that can be pumped in and out of the battery stack and stored in external tanks. The latter allows minimizing packaging materials and 50 percent higher system level energy density. Katsoudas’ and Segre’s company, Influit Energy, is developing a combination of NEF electrodes (cathode and anode) and unique flow battery cells to accommodate effective charge and discharge of nanoparticles in suspension. Their revolutionary approach allows increasing the energy density of flow batteries (40 Wh/L) to and above that of lithium-ion batteries (NEF target 380 Wh/L).

The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted more than 10,000 product design ideas from engineers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide.